UW goal for master plan: build up, not out

The future University of Washington Seattle campus will be tall, dense, and a little greener. UW planners have released a draft Master Plan for the campus, including recommendations for dozens of new buildings.

University of Washington is already one of Seattle's largest employers, and it's growing. The master plan team has projected about a 20% increase of both faculty/staff and students from 2014-2028.

Theresa Doherty is the Senior Project Director for the plan. Her team has identified 85 potential sites for new buildings on campus, and recommends that UW build on about half of them. Some of those sites have older buildings that would need to be torn down.

The draft plan includes more classrooms, dorms, labs, and way more office space. The biggest changes would come to the low-density western edge of campus, bordering the University Bridge and Portage Bay.

Doherty: "West campus is very well positioned in the fact that it's in between the two light rail stations... so we want to continue to build on that and make it a really urban part of the campus."

The proposal focuses on land that UW already owns. Doherty says the goal is to build up, not out, so that the University can add small parks around campus.

The latest Master Plan was approved in 2003, and most of those projects are complete. The new proposal will need approval from the UW Board of Regents and Seattle City Council.

UW is holding open houses on the proposal over the next month, and will take public comments until November 21

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