Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Husker fans — or your everyday pedestrian — will soon get to enjoy a new streetscape connecting downtown with City Campus. On Thursday, the NU Board of Regents approved an agreement with the city of Lincoln to create an "enhanced pedestrian promenade" near the corner of 10th and Q streets. The $350,000 project, instead of being managed independently by the city, will become part of the finishing touches on UNL's new $81 million Westbrook Music Building replacement, which is scheduled to open next year.
The streetscape enhancement will be entirely funded by the city, UNL officials said, but will be added to the Westbrook project's budget, which is being paid for from deferred maintenance funds set aside by the Legislature, in order for work to proceed concurrently. "If we don't do this, (work) would happen after the project," UNL Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance Mike Zeleny said. "We're asking we do this as part of the project instead of after, so it costs us nothing and actually saves the city money, too.
" Regents approved the measure 8-0. Once completed, the right-most lane of 10th Street north of Q Street would be removed to make space for a widened sidewalk with new landscaping and pedestrian lighting on the east side of the street. According to the city's master plan, the landscaping would also provide a buff er between the street and pedestrian walkway, as well as "signal the change between downtown and campus environments.
" Peter Hind, director of Urban Development for the city, said the streetscape enhancement, which is part of the Downtown Corridors Project, was an opportunity to seize upon "collateral benefit" for both the city and university. "We realized in our discussions that the Westbrook and Architecture (Hall) project were moving along much faster, so the need for us to allocate funding needed to happen sooner," Hind said. Drawing from the $4 million appropriated by Congress to the city for streetscape improvements, as well as tax-increment financing dollars from other downtown projects, Hind said the city added $350,000 to the $100,000 budgeted for the project by UNL.
The area will change further when the city converts one lane of traffic into what Hind described as a "smart lane," which includes some parking stalls and turn lanes that can also be used for pedestrians before and after Husker games. "We want to make sure that area is safe, beautiful and vibrant," he said. NU approved plans for the Westbrook Music Building replacement in 2021, which along with creating a modern space for music instruction and performance, would also anchor the southwest corner of City Campus and serve as a gateway between downtown and the Haymarket.
Once the new building opens next year, UNL plans to demolish the current Westbrook Music Building and turn it into a green space, creating a quad surrounded by Kimball Recital Hall, the Lied Center for Performing Arts, Sheldon Museum of Art, the Woods Art Building and the Architecture Complex. The green space will also become home to the "Kissing Columns," the granite columns each standing 22 feet high and weighing 18,000 pounds, creating an entrance to campus from Q Street. In other business: ■ Regents approved NU's 2025-27 biennial budget request on an 8-0 vote.
The increase calls for 3% salary increases for faculty and staff and 5% bumps in health insurance costs in each year of the biennium, as well as $1.5 million per year for the Presidential Scholars program and $1.5 million annually for the Nebraska Research Initiative.
The budget request, which must be submitted to the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education by Aug. 15 and the Legislature by Sept. 15, amounts to roughly a 3.
5% increase in state appropriations for NU. That would match the increase Nebraska's community colleges are set to receive next year. NU's current state appropriation is nearly $700 million.
■ Regents approved spending $50 million in existing private funds to begin non-construction design work on Project Health, an ambitious public-private partnership at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. As planned, the nearly $2.2 billion project aims to provide state-of-the-art training facilities for the next generation of health care providers, conduct research and offer clinical trials.
The scope of work approved by regents on Thursday will pay for design work to begin on a 7.5-acre site near the Fred & Pamela Buffet Cancer Center and the Durham Towers. ■ Thursday marked the first meeting for new President Jeff Gold, who was named the university's top administrator in March.
Gold, who led UNMC as chancellor for a decade, said he has spent the first six weeks in his new position traveling the state and meeting with Nebraskans. He told regents he has been inspired by the love Nebraskans have for their public university system. "Whether you live in an urban or rural part of the state, whether your passion is for agriculture, athletics, health care, teaching, our work with the military, we all have something in common," Gold said.
"That's a stake in the success of this great university system." Gold said the Nebraskans he met urged him to push NU to continue meeting the state's workforce needs, to see the university rejoin the Association of American Universities, and to ensure the state continues to have faith in the university as a center for higher education. An investiture ceremony will be held for Gold, NU's ninth president, on Sept.
5. He was previously invested as chancellor of UNMC on Sept. 5, 2014, and as UNO chancellor on Sept.
5, 2017. reach the writer at 402-473-7120 or [email protected] .
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