2008 MU Campus Master Plan: Introduction

Shaping a "smart-growth" strategy at MU

Like many public flagship universities in the United States, MU continues to face an uncertain future for the capital funding of facilities necessary to maintain its mission as the provider of high-level teaching, research, service and economic development for the state.

Funding uncertainties have to be reconciled with MU’s mission to provide facilities supporting institutional growth and change if the University is to undergird the state’s competitive edge in the global economy. Facilities are increasingly built in response to research priorities, enhancements in the quality of campus functions and student life and the level of services provided to the public. The University’s prominence in education and research will undoubtedly be reflected in continuing facilities growth and renewal, as will interdisciplinary teaching and research ventures among MU’s colleges.

Future Smart Growth: Helping to overcome fiscal uncertainty

While the growth of future facilities will continue, the unpredictable nature of capital funding, however, requires MU to be increasingly prudent in calculating fiscal effects of future facilities. A critical part of this calculation is anticipating infrastructure investment in the utilities, roads, and parking necessary to support campus growth. Further, it is incumbent that future development occurs in a cost-effective, sustainable and productive way. Such “productivity” includes the stewardship of the resources and qualities that distinguish the Mizzou campus and its relationship to the Columbia community. This is smart growth!

Based on an assessment of the fiscal and resource impacts of various patterns of facilities growth, the university is developing a “Smart Growth Strategy.” A key planning initiative, this major new refinement of the annually updated Campus Master Plan will provide technically and financially rigorous guidelines for future campus growth.

Smart Growth modeling

Several models of future campus growth, redevelopment and preservation are under study. Models include projections of building density, land use and open space that, from the standpoint of land capacity, are appropriate for areas of campus.

Models also indicate an additional future building capacity in the order of 4 million to 6 million gross square feet. The existing campus building area is 14.6 million gross square feet, of which 6.5 million gross square feet has been constructed in the last 25 years. Density and use projections are also geared to strengthen relationships between teaching, research, residential and social functions.

Projected, too, is new development that can be accommodated before central heating and cooling plants must be upgraded or expanded, and where localized constraints in utility distribution networks require new investment to support facilities development. Similarly, road improvements and parking required to serve new facilities growth are also projected.

The intent of the Smart Growth Strategy is to defer and/or reduce additional infrastructure investment by identifying ways of more efficiently utilizing land and infrastructure resources and optimizing development. With objective principles for development phasing, campus densities, land use, and conservation patterns, this strategy allows a rigorous framework for determining where, when and how to locate new facilities. With the overlay of the Smart Growth Strategy, the campus plan will make the stewardship of campus resources an integral part of the quality of campus and community life.