Architecture firm clark | huesemann has proposed three options for Emporia State’s new campus master plan. The Kansas Board of Regents requires that all regent institutions submit a campus master plan every 10 years with a minor update five years after. 

“Really, what (a master plan is) is just a high level kind of guidebook or roadmap for what campus can become in the future,” said Peter Hauff, director of facility planning.  “It usually gets into the history of where things were and where we want to be. (It) talks about some of the logistics, infrastructure and really … giving you a roadmap for next steps in campus planning.”

The previous and first campus master plan was developed in 2014. The 2014 vision planned for substantial growth of on-campus enrollment, which did not happen following the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Since then, the 2023 academic restructuring has also caused programs under specific schools to be split up among different buildings on campus. So, the new plan will go in a different direction with eight key goals (in order of priority):

1. Improve Utilization

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2. Reduce Square Footage

3. Enhance Student Services Ecosystem

4. Address Aging Space

5. Improve Campus Image

6. Improve Connectivity

7. Address Complexities

8. Improve Campus Navigation

The first two goals address the lack of growth since 2014, which has caused many campus spaces to appear underutilized. 

According to an April 24 presentation from clark | huesemann, ESU has the most academic space per on-campus student of any regent institution. This means that facilities are paying millions of dollars for the maintenance of a lot of space that is not efficiently used, according to Hauff. Because of this, each of the three options in the master plan involve a lot of campus building demolition. 

The new plans take into consideration the wants and needs of each school on campus. Some schools, like the School of Visual and Performing Arts, are spread across campus in multiple buildings and would like to be closer together. The team of master planners determined how much space each school actually needs, and are planning to remodel or construct new buildings to efficiently accommodate their needs. 

In a similar vein, the third goal seeks to move student services closer together so that they are easier to navigate. The remodeling and rebuilding also addresses the fourth goal; ESU has the oldest average building age of regent schools at 59 years.

The goals of the master plan also aim to make campus more accessible for everyone. This includes putting academic buildings closer together and potentially redesigning 15th Avenue to be safer for pedestrians by creating a new campus entrance at the intersection of 15th and Merchant Street. Parking is another big issue the plan seeks to address by potentially adding more parking space. 

Hauff said the planners hope to choose a plan soon and work on finalizing it over the summer. The campus plan will cover many details not seen on the master plan maps, such as things like a color palette. He joked that not a lot of people still like the grays selected in the 2014 plan. They hope to have all of this accomplished over the summer so they can present their plan to KBOR early in the fall semester.

After the plan is finalized, it isn’t clear what exactly will happen first. It depends on numerous factors. ESU Facilities has to decide what projects are the most vital, but they also have to take into consideration their funding. 

Gwen Larson, Director of Media Relations + Internal Communication brought up that the new Nursing Building was funded 100% by private money which made it much easier for the University to complete the project. Projects with more outside funds might be completed faster. For others, the University will have to gain public money to pay for them. 

Another factor is whether or not a project can be done internally by ESU Facilities or if they will have to contract a company to complete it. It would be cheaper for Facilities to do remodeling themselves. Larson and Hauff agreed that the timeline of the master plan is just deciding “what’s the (next) best choice” at each point.

Some projects are already in progress. The decision to demolish Morse Complex was made before the new campus master plan. However, the current demolition cannot move forward until a new plan is selected and a decision is made on where to house TRIO services. TRIO currently resides in South East Morse with the Student Wellness Center. 

Hauff also mentioned that not everything in the master plan is guaranteed to happen. The 2014 master plan suggested moving the Art Annex into the current facilities building and moving facilities onto the Art Annex location, a project that was never concretely pursued.

“It’s not an overnight plan… It could be 10 years, could be 15, could be 20 or more depending on how aggressive we want to be, or really how much funding is available… So it’s not a hard and fast plan, but it’s sort of like a wish list, maybe,” Hauff said. “So once we get to the point of (having) one of these options, then it becomes a little trickier to start navigating ‘What’s first? Can we afford that?’ or ‘What’s the next best thing?’ and so on and so forth.”