New plans to change face of KU’s campus 

LAWRENCE (KSNT) – The University of Kansas (KU) presented its 10-year plan for improving the Lawrence campus today. 

The “master plan” began development over a year ago. Surveys gathered over 5,000 responses on how students, faculty and the community feel about the functionality of campus. With these insights, Gautam Sundaram began putting together a sustainable plan. 

Sundaram, who works at an architecture and design company located in Boston, is KU’s consultant in the infrastructure plans. Sundaram highlights three main areas of focus: landscaping, connecting campus and revamping Jayhawk Boulevard as the campus central hub. 

“It is a very new way of how we think about campus planning,” Sundaram said. “Traditionally, campus plans are very prescriptive about ‘we need to add 20 more buildings around academic buildings….’ This needs to be very data driven, and it needs to be one that we can make flexible, that’s going to continue to help us form decisions.”

KU’s Campus Master Plan is being finalized and will need to be approved by the Kansas Board of Regents before going into effect.