Continued Growth and Enhancements

Continued Growth and Enhancements

A comparatively minor, yet very visible, portion of this construction boom was the redesign of SVSU’s “front door.” The 1996 Campus Master Plan recommended improvements to the campus main entrance to meet the needs of projected growth. The plan included the creation of a wide boulevard between the Bay Road lanes, a visual buffer to predicted commercial development west of the highway.

Workers completed a new entrance to SVSU, which included a redesigned Campus Drive and a new entrance sign flanked by twin detention ponds, in 2002 at the same time that the Michigan Department of Transportation widened M-84 to a four-lane highway, including a boulevard that starts at Pierce Road and stretches north to almost at the intersection at Three Mile Road. Soil from the excavation of the north pond helped create the highway expansion. A curving, sweeping new sign over the entrance drive replaced the 3-foot-high masonry sign that had stood there since 1991.47

A new sign and twin ponds were constructed in 2002 to enhance the “front door” to campus.