Interested Planning Board members and neighbors of the Stevens Institute of Technology gathered at City Hall Monday to listen to officials lay out the private university’s master plan for development over the next five years.
What made Monday’s Planning Board meeting important was that it was the first time in recent memory that the private university had presented its plan for the entire campus. In the past, the school presented individual projects before the city’s Planning Board, and Planning Board members had complained that it was difficult to approve them without knowing what the school was planning for the rest of the campus.
The meeting was also important for the university because it was the first step toward pursuing changes to the zoning code that are needed for future projects, particularly a 725-car garage that the school has in its plans.
Stevens representative Richard Bartholomew, a partner at urban planning firm Wallace Roberts & Todd, and the school’s architect, Demetri Sarantitis, presented the master plan. According to Sarantitis, this was the first time Stevens’ master plan had been updated since 1989. He added that updating the plan was significant because according to numbers supplied by the university, the school’s population has increased by 40 percent since 1990; therefore, the school needed to reassess its needs.
He also said that it is important that the school goes forward with facilities improvements and campus expansion to attract the best students and faculty in an extremely competitive market.
Seven future projects
According to Bartholomew, the school has seven new construction projects planned to start or be completed in the next five years, but stressed that the campus master plan is a just a “working document” and is fluid.
One project that the school is proposing is the Center for Maritime Studies on the waterfront. That would entail closing the Davis Lab, which is on Hudson Street between Seventh and Eighth streets. The Davis Lab houses a huge aquatic tank that tests prototypes for boats and tests tidal conditions. Every boat that sailed in the Gulf War had a prototype that was tested at Davis Lab well before it was sea ready.
The Center for Maritime Studies would be a long, clear, visibly transparent building and would house a tank that would be used by the school and by the Department of Environmental Protection to test tidal conditions. Also, the Army Corps of Engineers would use it to test ships and civil engineering projects such as bridges. Approximately one third of the land where the Center for Maritime Studies is slated to be built will be used for a waterfront walkway and a publicly accessible park.
“One of the most significant aspects of the [campus] improvements would be on the river with the waterfront walkway,” said Bartholomew. “It is something that will not only benefit Stevens but will also benefit the city.”
Currently at the site, which is just north of Sinatra Park, is a surface parking lot and a physical plant.
Just north of that property is Union Dry Dock, Hoboken’s last active maritime industry. While Stevens does not own the property, the school would like to build a NCAA-sized track with regulation soccer/lacrosse field. Between the field and the Hudson River there would be a waterfront walkway. Bartholomew acknowledged that the school doesn’t own the property, but added that they are currently in negotiations.
In the interior of the campus, the university has plans to build 350 units of new dormitory space. There are no renderings, as of yet, for the new dorms. A timetable for the fundraising and completions has yet to be set.
Also, there are plans to build a new police station and one fraternity house on campus.
Babbio Center and Fifth Street garage
Stevens has already gotten approvals for and is currently constructing a six-story “Babbio Center” building to accommodate classrooms, lecture halls, administrative and faculty offices, a restaurant, and classrooms. According to university officals, the school anticipates the completion of the Babbio Center for Technology Management in 2004.
Adjacent and partially underneath the Babbio Center, the school has announced plans to build a 725-car multilevel parking garage. “Parking is obviously a big issue for Stevens,” said Bartholomew.
According to him, the school will be losing 684 parking spaces from new construction. The majority of those spaces are lost from the surface parking lot that Babbio Center is currently being built on and the surface lot where the school plans to build the Center for Maritime Studies.
According to Bartholomew, the school would only net a gain of 56 parking spaces if this project is approved. But not all has gone smoothly in the court of public opinion when it comes the proposed garage. While it is uncontested that the school has approvals for the Babbio Center, many in the community believe the school was beginning to construct the garage underneath it, even though it has not received approvals from the Planning Board yet for such a project.
After a brief investigation, Mayor David Roberts ordered the school to stop work. Stevens took the matter to court, where judge has granted a stay and has allowed the school to continue work.
Now the school has to go before the city with an application to seek approvals for the project. One hurdle for the school is that as currently zoned, the school would need upwards of 10 zoning variances, some of which would be considered major, for the garage.
Stevens’ officals have said that it is their intention to request changes in the city’s zoning to make such a project possible. The first step was Monday night’s presentation of a master plan for the university.
Seeking a PUD
Bartholomew also announced Monday the type of changes the school will be seeking. Currently the school is comprised of four different “zones” with many different “lots.” School officals said that this is not the most effective way to zone a college campus that has many diversified and several concentrated uses.
Instead, they would like the campus to be looked at as a Planned Unit Development (PUD). A PUD is a planned combination of diverse land uses, such as housing, recreation and shopping in one contained development or subdivision.
Currently, each lot on the campus is looked at as a separate unit, and must have a certain amount of parking open space, certain setbacks and a certain number of parking spaces per lot. But, school officals contend, that is impractical for a college campus where a parking garage, a classroom building, or an auditorium might take up several lots, making it making difficult to provide parking or open space in the specific lot that is dedicated to a classroom building.
A PUD designation would allow the school to place the parking requirement or open space requirement elsewhere on campus. PUDs usually include provisions for the clustering of buildings, promotion of common open space, a mixture of building types and land uses. The PUD review process is more flexible than conventional zoning review, allowing for the calculation of densities over the entire development, rather than on an individual lot-by-lot basis.
The next step will be for the Planning Board to review Stevens’ request for zoning changes and forward its opinion to the City Council. The council is the only local government body that has the authority to change or adopt zoning laws.