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January 13, 2009, 01:42 PM ET
Good and Bad News for Drexel U. as It Expands on 2 Coasts
A $25-million donation will help Drexel U. buy and renovate this building by the architect Robert Venturi. (Drexel U. photo)
At the same time that Drexel University expanded by adding a California campus, it got good and bad news on the real-estate front. The good news is that a trustee donated $25-million to purchase and renovate two buildings adjoining the university’s Philadelphia campus. The bad news is that two organizations have sued to prevent the university from opening a second California campus.
The donation — which The Philadelphia Inquirer said comes from Richard A. Hayne, the founder of Urban Outfitters Inc. — will create a new home for the university’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. One of the buildings, at 3501 Market Street, is a 130,000-square-foot structure designed by the well-known Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi, whose work is also represented at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and other institutions. The second building adds another 13,000 square feet to the project, which will increase the size of Drexel’s campus by just over three acres and will also add 300 parking spaces.
The gift, the largest in Drexel’s history, includes — but is not contingent on — a challenge to the university to raise another $30-million. The total cost of the project is estimated at $55-million, according to The Triangle, Drexel’s student newspaper.
In California, however, the university’s expansion is running into difficulties. A plan to augment a campus that opened this month in downtown Sacramento with a site in a suburb has enraged environmental groups, including the Sierra Club. It and a local organization have filed separate lawsuits that seek to block a deal under which property owners would donate 1,157 acres to the university, of which 600 would become a campus and the rest would be developed.
The suits allege that a county review of the plan’s environmental impact was insufficient and that developing the land would, as the Sierra Club said in a news release, “trigger major urban growth in a remote area of the county far from cities, causing traffic congestion and air pollution, and making it harder for California to meet its goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
A spokesman for the county said it was “very comfortable with the extensive review that this project undertook.” Backers of the plan say it would create about 2,000 jobs.
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