If you’ve driven down Garland Avenue near the University of Arkansas recently, you’ve probably noticed the new facade on the Garland Center, the near-complete parking garage and mixed-use retail facility near the corner of Lindell Avenue.
The university announced on Tuesday that the center is almost ready for a few tenants, and that the University of Arkansas Bookstore will be moving from their long-time home in the Arkansas Student Union into the new facility on July 26.
The general bookstore, textbook department, computer store, Razorback shop, and all of the lab supply departments associated with the University Bookstore will be relocating in the move, scheduled to take place the weekend of July 23.
Rendering of Garland Center
In addition, the bookstore will introduce a “store-within-a-store” concept in the new location, featuring a technology store with Dell, Apple, and HP computer products, a coffee shop, a card store, a Nike store, a Clinique cosmetics counter, a Russell Athletics store, a Jones and Mitchell store, and an Office Max school supply store.
Garland Center boasts 30,000 square feet of retail space, and the university also announced that several private businesses are planning to set up shop in the new facility.
“Although leasing is still under way, these shops will include: a full service pharmacy (a partnership of the bookstore and the Pat Walker Health Center), Spoons Frozen Yogurt Shop, and a sandwich shop, to name a few,” reads the announcement.
Two levels of the new parking garage will be open when the University Bookstore relocates on the 26th, and the rest of the garage is set to open on August 23. The private retail shops will open as their respective build-outs are completed.
Would it kill the University to pick a design theme and stick with it for more than 2 years?
Seriously. Their schizophrenic architectural choices are a little embarrassing.
Its almost finished? Looks like *****. Any bets on how long before the randowm chunks of metal start falling off and injuring people?
CC and bb–
What would you prefer to see?
@DF
I would prefer to see a few solid styles reflected and replicated to make the campus feel connected.
Model buildings in the style of Old Main, and Vol Walker. Athletic facilities included. Voila. Beautiful, cohesive campus.
I hate the constant changes and how dated all the modern stuff looks after a few years.
A parking garage isn’t exactly a place to express architectural greatness, and this particular example doesn’t bother me too much. Its more the Kimpel Hall and JB Hunt-esque buildings that bother me.
@DF,BB
I agree with what burgerboy said; every time there’s a new project, a new “style” emerges on campus. If you look at the Union Quad, for example, you have 4 completely different building styles from the modern feel of the Law School to the library, to the Union, to the (whatever building that is over there on the other side.. music?)
What’s especially bad is that the new bookstore is facing the Health Center and the dorms and looks nothing like them, and the U has identified that more than 50% of traffic enters through there. It looks more like some bizarro Sim City than a university with a cohesive structure.
If you want to be brick like Old Main and Walker Health, stick to brick. If you want sandstone like the football stadium and the law school, stick to that. The U understands the idea of consistent appearances, else they wouldn’t have taken several years to design the new building identifiers that are slowly popping up around campus (the green signs as opposed to the old black ones).
Also, can somebody shed some light on what’s staying in the Union? Are the law school books still going to be there? What is going to be done with the space that’s been freed up? Did the University honestly introduce a “competitor” in terms of food to the Union, not 1000 feet away?
I’ve seen this design in other places (Georgia Tech has a big partnership with Barnes and Noble and built their new bookstore off campus and had this mixed retail vibe going), and it seems like we’re following for the sake of following.
Sorry for the novel.
David’s reply is in the BB&B thread, but all of a sudden I feel architecturally overwhelmed. No wonder I stayed in the business school for my undergrad; not smart enough to keep up with styles like that!
AFAIK right now the only thing moving from the Union is the UA Bookstore/Computer Store and that space is being taken over by UITS.
Not sure I’d call a frozen yogurt shop and sandwich place competitors to the offerings in the Union anymore than the Starbucks in the Law building (is it still there?) or the coffee shop in HAPF is a competitor to RZs.
I’m just glad we FINALLY have somewhere to park. Am I right?
David Franks sounds like an arrogant architect maybe involved with the project! Get down from your ivory tower, the U of A has some hideous architecture!
What they are planning to add on to the back of Vol Walker Hall is what should be discussed. There is a link to the UA planning page in the Flyer Forum.
@DF’s reply which is in the BBBling topic:
I get that parking structures and other big structures often can’t mimick certain architectural styles. But I also partially disagree. Look up Ohio Stadium and Nebraska’s football stadium. Lots of Big 10 stadiums incorporate older, even Gothic looks into their designs.
Great insights into what influences architectural design on a large public university campus. If there were any buildings I’d like to see demolished and or redone into some kind of redeeming architecture, it would be the high rise dorms and Kimpel. Is there anything architectural appealing about Kimpel? According to the most recent master plan documents, all buildings in that area are supposed to draw inspiration from Kimpel? They should have picked Gibson or Gregson as landmarks to mimic in that area of campus.
It doesn’t really matter, though, because it appear a master plan at U of A is only good for about two years before its scrapped and buildings are just plopped down wherever, however. Just like the architecture school addition that is planned. How does that fit with or mimick the historic core in any way, shape or form?
The U of A *does* have a design theme: unchained, barking chaos.
No one in the 19th century anticipated the future of their quaint industrial school on a hill. A century of undirected growth gave us this cramped, haphazard shotgun blast of parking nightmares, transportation hurdles, and hill-carved construction messes. Fayetteville High School is the same story. In hindsight, no one would build a major state university or even a sizable high school from scratch in that part of town.
I spent half my educational career hiking uphill both ways from overpriced parking spots at both FHS and the U of A. For students, these constructions are character-builders, coming-of-age lessons in the frustration of breaking from the institutional, under-funded public rat race of everyday life.
The U of A must remain a train wreck of design to serve as a reminder and a model of failure. After all, history forgotten is doomed to repeat. The U of A imparts the liberal arts notions of beauty, vision, creativity, and planning within its classrooms so that young minds can go forth and mold their world into something that doesn’t look like the U of A campus.
This will only make books cost even more to buy for school .Which are the new investment scam by publishers by making prices for these books at ridiculous prices that nobody can afford and making new versions of the book every semester and the old books from the previous semester useless becuase the updated versions are the ones being used by the teachers and usually make it mandatory to buy the new books . With the new building for the bookstore which I think is pointless and also paying for a bigger staff will only add on to the overly inflated book prices.
@Hognation
High book prices aren’t anything new… And the bookstores (be it the UA bookstore, Dickson St Book Exchange, etc) don’t set the price, the publisher’s do. And oh yeah you can now rent your books for the semester if you’re worried about not being able to sell them back afterward. But let’s not let facts get in the way…
I don’t know how this reply ended up in another thread, but I posted it to this thread just as the Flyer shut down for maintenance.
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bb and CC–
Thanks for the replies.
Ignoring the creation of open space, which is as vital to a campus as buildings are, here are a few thoughts on campus buildings:
There are several forces at work in the development of a large campus: source of funding, marketing, prevailing style, diversity of building function, modes of transportation. Look at the core campus. Even bb’s suggestion imposes the chaos we seem to like in the core campus. The prevailing unity of the core campus comes from the Collegiate Gothic plan of the 1920?s, which weaves its way through a motley bunch of older buildings, plus Vol Walker, a notably non-conforming contemporaneous structure– you suggest emulating Second Empire, Renaissance Revival, and, I guess, Collegiate Gothic.
Unfortunately, the emulative approach runs the risk of becoming just as dated as any timely style, plus the risk of being completely wrong for the intended function. Nothing about Second Empire or Collegiate Gothic is appropriate for the scale of a gymnasium. Better to take themes, such as wall and trim materials, colors, edge treatments, and other details when appropriate to the function of a new building. This has been carried out to a great extent as the campus has expanded. Gray limestone (and gray-colored concrete), red brick, concrete and stone banding, tan brick and concrete (thanks to the Fine Arts Center, a world-famous building when new)– these are still in use, and still provide an underlying unity even as the overt expression varies widely.
When private funding pays for all or part of a building (Law School), there is often a desire/requirement that the edifice be a landmark of some sort. Even when the state pays for a building (the Union), marketing comes into play, as the newest and latest facilities draw students. That usually means that current design trends become a predominant consideration– stylistically and functionally. Further, the notions of successful building change over time: you can trace educational theory, the development of HVAC technology and the cost of energy by looking at the campus.
There are a couple of threads on the Flyer site in which several people have expressed a desire for an interesting parking facility for the Dickson Street area. Isn’t that what the Garland Center is? Mixed-use and not-just-a-bunch-of-concrete-slabs are wanted and needed characteristics for such a facility, and here they are.
The larger fault of the north part of the campus is that the spaces resulting from expansion just aren’t very campuslike. Instead, the projects have to create their own campuses, one at a time. This happens on every college campus as it expands.
I’ll forgive your novel if you’ll forgive mine. Hell– I’ll forgive yours regardless.
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Seth– I am indeed arrogant, but I am not an architect.
DM and bb– I won’t disagree that the proposed addition to Vol Walker doesn’t look very appealing based on the drawing on the UofA project page, but there are a couple of factors to consider:
Vol Walker is on the National Register, which has guidelines for adding to historic structures, including: “New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.” Compatible? I can’t tell from the drawing, but I’m willing to assume that the addition will be more compatible than it looks.
The School of Architecture is consolidating a national (and even international) reputation in a very competitive market. It is entirely natural that the University would create a signature building by a well-known architect in order to help market the School.
Remember: Vol Walker was stuck for years between the ass-crack of Old Main (which was to have been torn down in the 1920′s campus plan; thank goodness for the Depression) and the unfortunate backside of Mullins Library. Ugly is not foreign to the territory.
@David Franks – Sorry about that. The Flyer had some minor hiccups yesterday while moving to a new server. I’ve removed the other comment from the BBB post.
TG– Thank you. I figured it was one of those odd electronic mysteries. I’ve always had good timing.
to @Michael
I said in my message that the publishers set the prices for the books . What meant that was buying books at the new building for the campus bookstore will likely get more expensive becuase of the new building and hiring extra staff .
The Vol Walker Hall addition rendering shows a style that is completely out of place at that location- it will be shocking to see and detract from the sense of place created by the other buildings in that area. When one walks by Old Main and the Gothic style buildings around there and sees that addition they will think less of the architect that designed it and think less of the school that allowed it to be built.
honestly, the back side of vol walker is not that attractive. i understand what a lot of you are saying, because my first reaction was knee-jerk in nature. it does not seem to fit. but honestly, the campus has a very eclectic nature. there are so many buildings of so many different architectural styles. while i was skeptical of the new parking deck design, seeing it come together, i am liking the look.
seeing the discussion on here, i can’t help but think of the song “little boxes” by malvina reynolds. is that what we really want? “little boxes made of ticky-tack, and they all look just the same…” i appreciate the diversity and variety on the campus. i don’t think that it detracts in any way from the experience. i personally think it has added to the five years i have spent on campus. a lot has changed in that time. the university master plan is not as simple as matching socks. there is an entirely other level of complexity.
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