City backs new HU facility
A biomedical research center eases through a zoning change.
By MATTHEW STURDEVANT 247-7874

November 9, 2007

HAMPTON

— Nobody came to comment on plans to rezone less than an acre near Hampton University, though a few people told the Planning Commission last week that a new biomedical facility would bring too much traffic into a residential neighborhood.

The traffic issue didn't come up during the City Council meeting Wednesday. Instead, Hampton Mayor Ross A. Kearney II championed the proposed Hampton University Research Center.

"Our university here in Hampton is becoming more of a research university every year, and it's what we need in our quest for more of the high-tech jobs," Kearney said.

The $4.5 million center is scheduled to be finished in October 2008.

The rezoning was to allow a university institution on three lots that were zoned for single-family residential homes. The research center will be a two-story brick building with a dome top and white pillars in the front. It is designed to blend with the neighboring residential area with bushes along the edge of the building and trees at the edge of the property.

The building is off campus, next to the university, at the corner of Tyler Street and College Place. A few people who own homes in that neighborhood immediately next to the university told the Planning Commission that the center would bring in too much traffic. However, there is no on-site parking at the building, so people driving to work will have to park at existing parking lots in various places across the campus.

There is one handicapped parking spot at the back of the building.

The Planning Commission recommended approving the plan, as did the council.

The center is separate from the university's Proton Therapy Institute that will be on Magruder Boulevard.

"The center will serve as an interdisciplinary research center that will attract scientists from all over the world," said Yuri Rodgers Milligan, director of university relations.

It will house the Center for Advanced Medical Instrumentation, where devices are made to locate and treat breast cancer during clinical trials. The facility will also attract visiting researchers and will be a center for scientific workshops, said Rodgers Milligan. In addition, the university plans to put its graduate medical physics program in the new building.



Copyright © 2007, Newport News, Va., Daily Press

Great to see the plans move forward for constructing this important biomedical research center at the College Place location.

This will be Hampton U.'s second cutting-edge research center following completion of the Proton Beam Therapy Center for the treatment of cancer that is currently under construction on Magruder Boulevard.



HU's Proton Therapy Institute