The original site plan prepared for Cleveland State University envisioned leveraging federal urban renewal funds (which never materialized) to build a compact 65-acre downtown campus. Like the Erieview urban renewal plan created five years before, the CSU plan was a modernistic compound of interconnected three-story classroom buildings and plazas punctuated by several high-rise office buildings. It was to include parking garages "under almost the entire campus--enough for 8,000 autos," according to the text that accompanied this rendering. "In this way," the plan exuded, "a complete walk-and-talk campus is built above the city streets." Although the university never reached the projected 35-40,000 students, over time it came to resemble the plan to the extent that some observers quipped that CSU stood for "Concrete State University." Today's 17,000 students enjoy the fruits of more recent efforts to craft a campus where glass and green space soften CSU's once-fortress-like presence. | Date: 1965 | Source: Cleveland Memory, Cleveland State University Library Special CollectionsDownload Original File
Source
Cleveland Memory, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
