Urban design elevates state university

How do you propel a second-tier state university into academia’s upper echelon? In the case of the University of Connecticut, you spend billions of dollars from the state government to improve the campus — and you hire consultants steeped in New Urbanism to help create an appealing town center. UConn, situated in the semi-rural Town of Mansfield, is eager to attract top-flight researchers, teachers, and students, but its out-of-the-way location and its lack of a lively, nearby town center have hindered that ambition. Soon that may change. The university and local interests worked together to organize the nonprofit Mansfield Downtown Partnership, which is shepherding development of a 45-acre site just across Storrs Road (Rt. 195) from the main campus. The Princeton, New Jersey, office of Looney Ricks Kiss carried out preliminary planning, and now a developer with new urbanist credentials has been chosen: Steve J. Maun’s Leyland Alliance, based in Tuxedo Park, New York. The master plan calls for Storrs Center to consist of three linked nodes of development on an irregularly shaped piece of land. Directly across the road from the UConn Fine Arts Center now being designed by Los Angeles architect Frank O. Gehry, Maun envisions a busy, pedestrian-oriented town square 240 feet across with shops and restaurants featuring outdoor tables. Farther back from the road would be a quieter section, with townhouses along its edge, overlooking a natural area. A third section would contain larger, everyday service uses such as a supermarket and a drug store. The plan includes 40,000 to 75,000 square feet of offices and 500 to 800 rental and for-sale housing units, most of them above stores or parking. Maun intends to construct “liner buildings,” probably containing small shops, on the perimeter of one or more parking structures. Two-thirds of the site would be preserved as woodlands, wetlands, and a vernal pool. Government approvals could come through by this fall, allowing construction to start in early 2006. Herbert S. Newman & Partners of New Haven is in charge of the project’s planning and architecture.