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University of Dayton looking at spring for master plan on NCR property
Friday, November 10, 2006
DAYTON — — The University of Dayton hopes to complete a campus master plan by Memorial Day to redevelop a 50-acre parcel it acquired from NCR Corp.
Ted Bucaro, government and regional relations director for UD, said Thursday at a public briefing on the development that work in consultation with consulting planner Burt Hill will continue into 2007.
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It's anticipated that the eastern portion of the property near the main campus will have an academic use and the western portion of the property would include a mixed use, including retail and commercial.
A Web site at http://udcampusmasterplan.udayton.edu/index.aspx will allow visitors to track progress on the development of the new campus master plan and offer suggestions, UD spokeswoman Teri Rizvi said.
The land addition boosts UD's landscape from about 216 acres to 266 acres and provides an opportunity to create a campus gateway. It could also link to downtown an old industrial patch of land that has remained vacant for 30 years, Bucaro said.
No final decision has been made on NCR's old Building 26, the site of a top-secret Navy laboratory to design and build code-breaking machines that helped shorten World War II. It could be demolished, Bucaro said, but an historical assessment is under way.
UD wants to get approval from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to redevelop the site under an urban setting designation, which would allow the cleanup of contaminated groundwater, but not to drinking standards. Approval should come by April 2, but could come sooner, Bucaro said.
In other news related to redevelopment of former NCR property, Joseph Smindak, senior site coordinator for OEPA, said state drilling to evaluate potential hazards from groundwater contamination should begin in early December. The state will test about 300 feet south of an office building Cox Ohio Publishing, parent company of the Dayton Daily News, purchased from NCR. The building will be the new location of the Daily News. OEPA will test soil in an area NCR once used to store drums of flammable liquids.
Smindak said he met with Cox Ohio Publishing representatives last week to discuss the testing, which is meant to determine whether vapors from volatile organic compounds in the soil could pose a hazard to building occupants.
Additional testing for vapor hazards will also occur, he said. Cox Ohio Publishing has hired a specialist on vapor intrusion to begin testing next week in the vicinity of its building in coordination with the OEPA's work, Smindak said.
"They want to be sure it's safe for their employees," Smindak said.
NCR has said the company does not believe there is a hazard.
