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University Expansion Could Have Big Impact

Posted on: Sunday, 5 March 2006, 13:01 CST

By David DeKok, The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa.

Mar. 5--Harrisburg University of Science and Technology is expected to have a major impact on inner-city development, especially in the Cameron Street corridor that skirts the city's Allison Hill neighborhood -- eventually.

University President Mel Schiavelli sees the school having a development role much like the University of Pennsylvania has in Philadelphia, although not on that scale.

"We are also a community redevelopment project," he said. "We are hoping that startup companies will locate near the campus. Penn does a lot of that on 40th Street [in Philadelphia]."

The university enrolled its first tuition-paying class of 110 students last September. Tuition is $14,000 for a year.

Harrisburg University shares space with the affiliated SciTech High on Market Street in downtown Harrisburg. Construction of a 17-story classroom tower (some floors will be parking) on what is now a parking lot at Fourth and Market streets downtown is expected to begin this spring and continue for two years.

The new building will enable the university to enroll between 1,200 and 1,400 students, Schiavelli said. He estimates that will meet its needs until about 2015 or 2018.

By that time, Schiavelli hopes to have acquired the post office property a few blocks east at 813 Market St., where the building will be demolished and more university buildings constructed.

Schiavelli envisions the university -- some day -- on much of the land bounded by the State Street and Mulberry Street bridges on the north and south, the railroad tracks on the west and the edge of Allison Hill to the east.

If and when that happens, Allison Hill may become an attractive place for students to live. Many homes in the neighborhood would be a short walk from the university campus, although something would have to be done to make crossing Cameron Street safer for pedestrians.

The university has been talking with the U.S. Postal Service about acquiring the post office property along Market Street, but the government has conditions. The main condition is that the university, at its expense, build or acquire a distribution center and a retail store for use by the post office.

The post office uses its property at 813 Market St. as a distribution center and retail outlet, and those operations would need to be moved if the property is sold.

Developer Tony Pascotti, one of the partners who sold the university the property at Fourth and Market streets, said the Postal Service's preferred relocation site is across the street on land occupied by The Patriot-News Co. office building.

John Kirkpatrick, editor, publisher and president of The Patriot-News, said conversations with the university have taken place, but not for more than a year.

"They have expressed their interest in controlling the whole area at some point," he said of the university. "Not just us, but other property owners, as well."

The newspaper has not received a formal proposal for its property. Any sale would likely be years away.

All of the property in the Cameron Street corridor envisioned as the future university campus is in a floodplain. The area has been flooded frequently in the past by overflow from Paxton Creek. Engineers familiar with the area and with construction techniques believe the problem can be handled by raising the elevation of buildings a few feet.

Schiavelli spent 26 years at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, including service as acting president, and later was academic provost at the University of Delaware. He sees Harrisburg University as a classic urban campus. He used the example of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Some urban colleges have student dormitories and some don't. Harrisburg University, at least for the time being, will be in the latter category.

Some students will commute from home, and others will rent apartments in the city. Schiavelli said a few students are living at International House on Chestnut Street. An influx of young people is certain to help the local economy.

"The kids will want Second Street," he said, referring to the bars and restaurants in that part of the city. "They'll want bookstores and record stores."

More students in the first class came from outside the region than expected, Schiavelli said, despite minimal outside marketing. A few came from Baltimore -- "they found us on the Internet" -- and Frederick in Maryland, and others from Bucks, Berks, Lehigh, York and Lancaster counties, he said.

Once here, they find a nontraditional college that Schiavelli calls "liberal arts for the 21st century." One big difference is no academic departments, such as physics or chemistry. Multi-disciplinary is in.

"We don't want to build silos of academic disciplines," he said. "We want cross-disciplines."

Young people who succeed in the 21st century will have a broad range of skills that enable them to do a number of things well, Schiavelli said. Students will be taught to think in terms of careers, not just jobs.

"It's a challenge and an experiment," he said. "Our 110 students are warming up to a different kind of teaching. We don't have lectures that are death by PowerPoint. Our style is not sage on the stage, but guide at the side."

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Source: The Patriot-News

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