FIU has embarked on an ambitious $124 million plan that is already transforming FIU and neighboring Sweetwater.
It is called UniversityCity and combines two major components: creation of a transportation hub at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus (MMC) featuring enhanced bus service to connect east and west Miami-Dade County, and the development of a small, economically stable downtown in the city of Sweetwater. FIU believes this new infrastructure will help alleviate worsening traffic by stimulating development of student-oriented housing in Sweetwater, encouraging use of public transit and decreasing the distances between where people live, work, play and go to school.
“We are trying to plan, prepare and build for the future,” says Steve Sauls, FIU’s vice president for Governmental Relations. “We’re leveraging university expertise to respond to locally based problems and thinking very intentionally about how people interface with the physical and social environment on and around campus.”
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The project also will address FIU’s continued growth and its ability to serve ever-greater numbers of students. Today MMC has parking available for as many as 11,500 cars, a number that leaves many drivers circling around for open spaces during peak times on a typical weekday.
“We have a great university, and imagine if people couldn’t get here because the roads are all congested,” Sauls says. At issue are also questions of sustainability, among them quality of life, health and the environment. “These are problems with solutions that take a long time to plan and implement,” he explains. “We need to be forward thinking. There is no time like the present to begin working on them and to create momentum.”
Getting started
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A conceptual rendering of the bridge on the FIU side of the Southwest 8th Street – 109th Ave. intersection.
Over the last several years Sauls has built a coalition of local, state and national agencies to coordinate a variety of projects related to the UniversityCity plan. He also brought on board numerous collaborators and secured initial funding.
An $11.4 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant announced in the fall will make possible the construction of a pedestrian bridge across Southwest 8th Street to connect MMC with Sweetwater’s main street at 109th Avenue. The bridge will offer safe passage over a highly traveled seven-lane road and is expected to be completed in 2017. But that quiet area – currently a collection of mom-and-pop businesses – will see its first boost in activity long before that. This summer a new, private 15-story, student-oriented apartment building will welcome its first residents. Other residential projects are already in the works as are shops and eateries that would attract students, faculty and staff. For a commuter school bounded on four sides by busy thoroughfares, an easily accessible, dynamic urban village should create a lot of interest.
Architecture Professor Adam Drisin worked on initial plans for UniversityCity, which early on involved architecture students presenting ideas. FIU’s efforts in Sweetwater, he said, reflect a growing trend in American universities.
