Man with a plan
Health Science CenterÂ’s Master Plan to broaden university, community profiles
When the Fort Worth Osteopathic Hospital closed in 2004, it made available a large piece of property across Montgomery Street from the Health Science Center. The school was already locked in by neighborhoods to the north, the planned multi-use project called Museum Place to the east, and the Cultural District to the south. So when all the patients and staff left and the medical equipment was moved out, the university purchased the property.
“We were land-locked,” said Greg Upp, senior vice president of community engagement at the Health Science Center. “It was just so evident. We needed that property.”
The procurement, which nearly
doubled the size of the Health Science CenterÂ’s property, was one step in the schoolÂ’s Master Plan, a grand blueprint for how the university will grow in the next 20 years. The final version of the Master Plan proposal will be presented to the board of regents on Aug. 23. Carter & Burgess Inc. of Fort Worth and Polshek Partnership Architects LLP, from New York, will team to make the plan a
reality.
Overall, the Master Plan includes several principles. Academics and research, of course, are integral, as is creating community, opening up linked spaces, using environmentally friendly or sustainable practices, and planning for the future growth of an aesthetically pleasing campus. The number of students enrolled at the school is expected to more than double in the next 20 years, and school officials say there must be places for them – and new faculty, staff and researchers – to go. In addition to new amenities, old features will be redone.
‘Test-tube land in no time’
At the site of the old hospital, known as Building A, the medical equipment has been removed. Upp said that four or five film production companies used the building as a set, since it can easily be made to look like a working hospital.
Within the next 60 days, Upp said, the building will be prepared for demolition. Copper, bricks, sinks, commodes, doors, hardware and other usable materials will be removed and set aside to be recycled before the building is torn down this fall. Construction then will begin on the new Building A, which is expected to open two years from now and will be the first construction project completed under the Master Plan. Other buildings will be constructed or remodeled in future years.
Building A will become office space for researchers and other staff. There will be large auditorium-style rooms, and smaller ones for meetings. A raised corridor-like walkway will connect it across the street to what is now Med Ed I, the large building with the schoolÂ’s name on the side that sits at the intersection of Montgomery Street and Camp Bowie Boulevard. Med Ed I, which used to house laboratories, will be revamped to its former state, a process that will be less expensive than building labs from scratch, said Dr. Scott Ransom, president of the Health Science Center.
“The old style is to have your lab where your office is, which is great except that you don’t talk to anybody,” Ransom said. “Moving some walls and stuff, we could be in test-tube land in no time.”
Upp said that separating offices from labs will encourage people on campus to move and interact with each other. The walkway will have benches and seats, creating comfortable spaces.
“Any time you can get researchers, students and faculty out of their labs and offices, you have a greater chance for an exchange of ideas,” Upp said. “It fosters that interdisciplinary approach.”
The campus will be “greened-up”; lawns will be added and trees planted. The current campus is reportedly 98 percent impervious material – buildings, sidewalks, parking lots and streets. And while cultivating and watering new green spaces could be a financial burden for some, Upp said that the campus will be able to make use of existing natural springs on the property, and that the changes will make the campus enticing to its own population and to the community around it.
“We can be a great neighbor, I believe,” Upp said.
He added that in the future, local
committees and businesses can use the campus rooms and auditoriums and
people from the surrounding neighborhoods will be able to stroll around the green areas. Three public meetings were held to solicit input from the community, on campus and off, for the final version of the Master Plan, Upp said, and the
university tried to take into account the concerns of its neighbors.
“We attempted to make this master planning an inclusive process, and I think that’s turned into a strength of the plan,” Upp said. “It made it better than if made in a vacuum.”
By bringing together different facets of the campus to work more efficiently with each other, the research and application in the future of health science will reach the community more quickly, Upp said.
“That part’s not good science,” he said. “That’s just common sense.”
Contact Bassett at ebassett@bizpress.net
