In 2010, the space next to Denny Field will no longer be a parking lot. It will become home to a $95 million building roughly the size of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering.

After years of anticipation, the plans for the new Michael G. Foster School of Business building are progressing. More than 50 percent of the necessary construction documents have been completed, and construction is set to begin this August.

The first phase of the project is PACCAR Hall, named after the truck-producing company that donated $18 million to the school. It is intended to house the executive education and masters programs.

The current business school buildings, Balmer and Mackenzie Hall, are regarded as significantly outdated and inconsistent with the changing, interactive style of teaching the school uses today, said Pete Dukes, the Internal Project Manager for PACCAR Hall and a professor of accounting. The business school needs space for continued expansion, he said.

Various groups on campus have reviewed the plans for the building.

The University Architecture Commission (UAC) and University Landscape Advisory Committee have approved the plans for PACCAR Hall, but the City/University Community Advising Committee (CUCAC) unanimously advised revisions to the plans.

All sixteen CUCAC representatives voted to send a letter to UW President Mark Emmert on March 6 voicing their concerns.

The review board, consisting of UW students, faculty and community members, was created in the 1998 City-University Agreement. This agreement ensured that the CUCAC would work as a liaison between the city and the University.

Will the new building ruin the prestige of Denny Hall?

Matthew Fox, a ten-year member of the board, called the current design for PACCAR Hall a modern monstrosity.

The CUCAC’s biggest concern is that PACCAR Hall is out of scale and incompatible with Denny Hall.

“The design will crowd and take away from one of the most historic buildings in the city,” Fox said.

CUCAC members have raised concerns about having such a “brutally modern structure” in an area of campus with primarily collegiate gothic architecture.

Dukes said he would prefer gothic-style architecture, but it wouldn’t be able to accomplish one of the main goals of the new building, which is to create a large, informal meeting space to encourage interaction between students.

“Not everyone is going to be ready for this type of building, but certainly the University Architecture Commission agrees with the plans, so we are happy,” Dukes said.

The UAC is charged with formally reviewing every design and renovation on campus and is made up of roughly 10 architects.

“In response to advisements made by several groups on campus, primarily the UAC, we have changed our plans to make the building shorter and smaller,” Dukes said.

The original space allotted for the project in 2003 was 272,000 square feet, but today the project being designed is approximately half that size.

When the planning committee presented the building information to the CUCAC, it expected to receive feedback on how the building would affect the community and concerns about externalities such as parking and increased traffic, Dukes said.

“We really didn’t expect them to tell us what the exterior should look like,” he said.

In the letter addressed to President Emmert, the CUCAC proposed making Balmer Hall taller to limit crowding of Denny Hall from PACCAR Hall.

Emmert responded to CUCAC co-chairs Fox and Daniel Kraus in a letter on April 11.

“This is a complex architectural problem for which there are no easy solutions,” Emmert wrote. He cited the project’s size and scale, its relationship to Denny Hall and other nearby buildings, as well as its proximity to Memorial Way as the reasons for this challenge.

In regards to the concerns about the style of the building, he wrote that one of the design goals of the UAC is to create a cohesive collection of buildings that allows Denny Hall to retain its prominence.

Many members of the CUCAC feel that their recommendations have been disregarded on this matter.

“If no one is listening, and we aren’t making a difference, it makes me wonder what our role is,” Fox said.

What are the students saying?

Most business students are counting down the days until they can leave Balmer Hall behind. The new building brings with it a set of construction issues for students to face, however.

Kira Detko, the president of Undergraduate Women in Business, is excited about the new building because she believes it will help make the business program more prestigious and receive a higher national ranking. The ability to have a forum for leadership conferences and a nice work environment will help lure more prominent professors and graduate students from around the nation, she said.

“I think [the building’s design] will just modernize the campus more ­— the benefits outweigh the bad here,” she said.