Mayor, university promote Arlington as ‘College Town’
Both University of Texas at Arlington President James Spaniolo and Arlington Mayor Bob Cluck hope that a strategy dubbed “College Town” can solve a long-existing dilemma for the city.
Here’s the situation: UT-Arlington has been a higher education entity in the city since W.M. Trimble and L.M. Hammond opened the doors of Arlington College (now UT-Arlington) in 1894 in what was then and is now the Downtown core. The northeastern corner of the university is three short blocks from the original city center at Main and Center streets – two blocks from City Hall.
Normally this kind of urban/collegiate dynamic would have resulted in a busy blend of college and business – lots of restaurants, night life, galleries and the other business trappings that typically surround a major university, with students and faculty everywhere, and with townsfolk making extensive use of university cultural amenities, which include art galleries, musical and theatrical performances, sports and nationally known lecturers.
Check out the immediate area around the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University or any number of other universities in college towns around the country as appropriate examples.
But that didn’t happen to any great extent in Arlington. Indeed, even as the university boomed, the city’s adjoining Downtown area basically languished, only recently showing signs of resurgence. Though Arlington has been a college town for more than a century, the two entities – one the university and the other the Downtown area – basically intermingled only casually.
Why so? Opinions vary, but at heart the problem was probably that UT-Arlington was simply too conveniently located. It is 16 miles from downtown Fort Worth and an equal distance from downtown Dallas. It was possible to easily commute to classes and until recent years little emphasis was placed on expanding on-campus dormitories and apartments.
Too, the Dallas-Fort Worth area provides a vast montage of cultural and recreational resources, which compete with university offerings. Once students and faculty depart from the university when classes end, there’s little reason to return – though the hope is that the College Town strategy can change that. It also helps that the university gradually has increased its campus housing to almost 5,000, and thousands of other students live in close proximity off campus.
So what’s this College Town business?
“Arlington is still a college town,” Spaniolo said, “now more than ever.
Spaniolo said “college town” describes a place where diverse and interesting people value education, innovation, the arts and commerce. It is one of the cornerstones of the idea of attracting a creative class of well-educated, culturally and racially diverse, entrepreneurial people.
“It’s a place where a local college or university plays a key role in strengthening community through pride-building and involvement – an energy to itself,” the university president says.
The college town idea also is considerably more than just a philosophy. It includes a considerable quantity of brick and mortar enhancements that will contribute significantly to Arlington’s sense of place, particularly its Downtown identity.
Those projects include a 234,000-square-foot Engineering Research Building near Cooper Street (it opens in early 2011) that will advance the university’s stature as a world class engineering education and research facility.
But from a college town idea perspective, the most public amenity will be a transforming project – the plan to create a thriving residential, entertainment and retail destination on the eastern edge of the campus – appropriately on Center Street, the heart and geographic middle of the city.
The UT System Board of Regents has approved plans for an $80 million, 190,000-square-foot special events center between South Center and South Pecan streets. The 6,500-seat venue has been on both the university’s and city’s wish list for more than three decades. It will host athletic events, such as basketball and volleyball, as well as concerts, commencements, speakers, conferences and a plethora of other events. Part of the package also includes a separate $67 million parking garage and residence hall for about 450 students. The building, which will open in 2012, also will include retail and office space and a combined community/student plaza.
“The special events will also connect the university much more directly with the Downtown area,” Spaniolo said. “I suspect it will also serve as the catalyst for a great deal more Downtown redevelopment.”
The college town concept is one that Arlington Mayor Bob Cluck relishes. And endorses.
“I don’t think the word ‘communiversity’ is in Webster’s dictionary, but that’s the idea,” Cluck said. “We really need to blur the whole Downtown identity, mixing students, workers, government, churches and businesses into one cohesive, fascinating cultural, business and academic entity – a college town.”
Put another way, Spaniolo said, College Town is part of a vision for a renewed downtown Arlington. One with the research and educational powerhouse that is UT-Arlington at its core, but surrounded by performing and fine arts venues, sports, a first-class planetarium and a bevy of retailers and restaurants within an area networked with reclaimed spaces, pedestrian walkways, thousands of students in proximity and accessible linear parks.
Will it work? Is College Town finally a tipping point for a Downtown transformation? Both Spaniolo and Cluck predict the answer will be “Yes.”
okcarter@bizpress.net
