Southwestern University is planning to develop the more than 500 acres of land that the university owns own contiguous to campus. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enlarge the university’s presence, not just in terms of usage and economic resources, but in terms of visibility, mission, and vision. This development must expand and enhance the student experience at Southwestern and support our core purpose—fostering a liberal arts community whose values and actions encourage contributions to the well-being of humanity. A project of this magnitude will take years to complete and will need extensive planning and involvement with the campus and wider communities to ensure that both the processes and outcomes are aligned with our mission and so that the development gives material form to Southwestern’s liberal arts values. As we realize this vision, we will work with internal and external stakeholders to pursue the following goals:
- Develop a long-term economically sustainable business model that generates economic activity that benefits the University and the larger community
- Encourage mutually-beneficial partnerships with industry and commerce to create opportunities for student internships, employment, and research, especially in growing fields such as high-tech, data, medical, and alternative energy
- Prioritize flexible mixed-use development that encourages a diversity of uses now and accommodates evolving demands to maximize their use value over time
- Create affordable housing to allow more Southwestern staff, faculty and students to live in a desirable location closer to campus · Build a socioeconomically diverse and multi-generational community around Southwestern by providing a wide range of housing types, scales, and costs · Further our commitment to diversity and inclusion, and the lifelong learning of our students, alumni, and the greater Southwestern and Georgetown community
- Incentivize an environmentally sustainable approach to buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure · Incorporate the visual and performing arts into the living environment
- Honor the complex histories and native peoples of this area and those who will continue to steward it into the future
- Create an extensive network of greenbelts throughout the development that conserve indigenous flora and fauna while providing opportunities for public spaces, outdoor recreation, wellness, and faculty/student field research
- Create a walkable community around Southwestern that contributes to the public good by connecting the campus to the rest of the city
- Develop a clear sense of purpose and overall aesthetic coherence that seamlessly connects the University to the new development in order to promote belonging and community
Background/Rationale
With this Statement, Southwestern visualizes the development of the more than 500 contiguous acres as an opportunity to not only produce a long-term economically sustainable economic engine for Southwestern but also to integrate the campus within a much broader development aesthetically and ethically connected to campus that will create a better quality of life for our staff, faculty, students, and neighbors while providing an alternative model of sustainable development featuring environmentally and economically sustainable housing, retail, industry, and greenspaces as Central Texas continues to rapidly urbanize.
Many of the values we have articulated here also are aligned with the aspirational values of the Georgetown 2030 Land Use Plan. The 2030 Plan seeks to guide the city as it continues to grow from a small town to a low-density suburb to a distinctive but connected part of an increasingly dense Central Texas metropolitan area, one that will intentionally integrate more diverse forms of residential housing, commercial services, and industry into mixed-use developments that are also more intentionally connected to one another while also buffered by planned greenspaces.
We expect external conditions to be fluid throughout the process. Southwestern will work closely with the City of Georgetown, as this development will have a significant impact on the shape and character of the city, especially the part of the city east of Interstate 35. But while we expect to be flexible on details, particularly as we coordinate with the City of Georgetown to reduce redundancies of services and structures as the land all around ours is also developed, we commit to always being guided by the broad values articulated in our Statement.