A New Master Plan for the University of Washington

"The University of Washington (UW) is deep into its Seattle campus master planning update for 2018," reports Stephen Fesler. "Earlier this month, the university released the draft plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS)."

To meet the needs of the next ten years and beyond, the draft version of the master plan "anticipates that up to 6,000,000 net new gross square feet of space may be developed in the next ten years across dozens of development sites," according to Fessler. The plan has identified 85 potential development sites, all on the main campus in Seattle, for the purposes of developing that space.

The university's master plan process is critical to the institution's relationship with the city, but the university has a remarkable amount of autonomy. According to Fessler, "under a City-University agreement the university is only beholden to development standards of the campus master plan and Major Institutional Overlay (MIO) that UW property is designated, not other development regulations established under the Seattle Land Use Code."

Fessler provides additional details of the plans proposed by the current draft, breaking down the campus into four subareas (most of the growth is proposed for the West Campus and South Campus) and examining proposals for the pedestrian network, new open space, an improved bicycle network, and parking. Plan views and renderings are included.