Covenant News

Tour Showcases North Park Campus Improvements

CHICAGO, IL (June 27, 2003) - North Park University (NPU) is sprucing up its campus and on Thursday night 80 attendees from the 118th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church took a peek at the school's new look, thanks to nearly completed $3.5 million landscaping project.

The university gave a tour of the campus and hosted a picnic with President David Horner discussing how the project has taken shape. A more formal dedication for the project will be held during Homecoming weekend in October, but Horner was more than willing to show off what has already been done.

"The totality of this design is not something you'd find at many other campuses in this country," he said. "And the credit really goes to the remarkably visionary and generous anonymous donors who committed to this project."

In the fall of 2001, NPU celebrated the dedication of its new Brandel Library. At that juncture, the university was encouraged by outside donors to think more expansively about a campus green space project that would improve the look of the campus surrounding the old library, curtail flooding problems in one of its buildings - Wilson Hall - and eliminate significant vehicle traffic on the west side of campus through the closure of Spaulding Avenue.

The university worked with the city of Chicago on numerous logistical issues involving (among other things) alley demolition and burying overhead utilities. It began work on its comprehensive landscape design in the summer of 2002. Donors contributed $2.5 million and NPU received a grant from the "Illinois First" program for another $1 million, making the landscaping project a viable option.

In February, the major landscaping began in earnest with the demolition of Spaulding Avenue. Horner hopes the final landscaping work will be finished in early August. One can view green space from Brandel Library to the Old Main building. The new sidewalk extending across campus and recently planted trees make the building-filled Spaulding Avenue area seem like a distant memory.

"It (the new landscaping) makes us more cozy and grand at the same time," Horner said. For more about NPU's landscaping project and the dedication events during Homecoming weekend, call 773-244-5567.

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