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East U. to become pedestrian mall

Students can look forward to more drilling during the next year as East University is scheduled to turn into a pedestrian mall. University planner Fred Mayer said the construction addresses the need to compete for new students by creating a more attractive campus.

He said the construction indicates "the need to compete for you, the students. The University wants to upgrade to make it safer and better quality."

The design was presented to SNRE students and faculty Thursday by the landscape architecture firm Johnson, Johnson and Roy.

It was approved by the University Board of Regents in December. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of this term.

East University Avenue, between South and North University Avenues, is one of the original streets bordering campus. It will be full of grass, trees, flowers and benches and will not characterize the olden days.

New benches, lighting, maps and bike racks will be added.

The new plan will be in complete compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, said Prof. Terry Brown, chair of the SNRE landscape architecture department.

Members of the SNRE audience said they were angry they were not asked for input before the decision was reached. Some students and faculty members told Johnson, Johnson and Roy they had ideas that could have made the design more ecologically balanced and energy efficient.

"We all live and work here. This is our home place and we would like to be involved," said landscape architecture Prof. Bob Grese.

The design uses exotic plants and trees, including Scotch pines and flowering crab apple trees, and nothing native to southeastern Michigan.

More energy and water will be needed to maintain the non-native vegetation in the future. Native plants could grow here more easily because the soil naturally supports such vegetation.

The plan will require the use of an artificial irrigation system, said Dale Sass, a principal of Johnson, Johnson and Roy.

Because of fresh water shortages, the United States may need to cut back the use of water into the next century. Working with sustainable crops and vegetation, local to southeastern Michigan, is one simple way to contribute to the solution, Griese said.

"Sustainable landscapes are really the way of the future. What is the responsibility of the University than to educate people?" asked Sally Moore, a landscape architecture graduate student.

The firm did ask input from the University math, psychology and philosophy departments last fall -- as these departments border the new mall -- and said they incorporated these ideas into the final design.

Grese said he thought it was unfair that the firm did not include another bordering department -- the landscape architecture department -- in its decisions.

"The consultants have the idea that employees went to school here years ago so they don't need to get our view now," he said.

Grese said he disapproved of the design because it does not represent the vegetation unique to Michigan and it does not commemorate the street as an original part of campus.

He said he is especially disappointed because the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to convince universities to demonstrate sustainable landscapes. They hope to get people to look toward alternatives to grassy front lawns and are looking to universities to prove beauty can be achieved in other ways.

"The greater challenge is not for an aesthetic place, but for a workable and ecologically sound one as well," Grese said. "If we can't do that here, there is something wrong."

Mayer said he disagrees with SNRE faculty because most departments approve of the plants that the firm picked and are not concerned about the sustainability of the future.

"We could pick our materials carefully, lower irrigation costs, but there's the problem of someone from the math department calling to say, `Cut the grass,'" Mayer said.

In fact, the regents said they want more evergreen trees to give the campus more life in the winter, Mayer said. But Grese and other audience members said this is exactly their point.

"We're insulting the landscape. We're making a generic landscape that looks the same in Florida as it does in Michigan. We should embrace the indigenous landscape and celebrate the uniqueness of the area the campus is sited in, as opposed to becoming the University of America," said Jason Blazar, a fifth-year SNRE senior.

The landscape architecture department studies the sustainability of native plants and which varieties and combinations compliment each other. The students develop creative landscaping skills and explore ways for ecologically sound landscapes to be aesthetically pleasing.

The use of native plants could educate others about alternative types of landscaping, precisely what the EPA is asking universities to do, Grese said.

"The University really needs to use its resources. My hope for the future is that the University can work in tandem with the people who really know," Moore agreed.

The construction on the mall began in the 1960s, when the Central Campus Plan called for use of East University Avenue as a pedestrian walkway and also to provide access to utility lines and emergency vehicles, Mayer said.

This is the final part of the mall plan -- delayed by the construction on West Hall, East Hall and the Randall Laboratory Building.