ANN ARBOR—An updated master plan for North Campus presented to the University of Michigan Board of Regents Thursday preserves the themes of earlier visions for the area, while providing a look at possible components that will make those themes a reality.

By increasing the density and redeveloping existing sites, an additional 10 million gross square feet of building space could be constructed on North Campus. The existing North Campus buildings comprise 7 million gross square feet of space that has been built over the last 50 years.

Sue Gott, University planner, says the plan is guided by several themes, including creating strong connections between North Campus and Central Campus, promoting campus vitality, optimizing the capacity for additional development and respecting and incorporating environmental features. The themes echo the vision contained in a 2005 report on North Campus by former interim president Homer Neal, Gott said. She recognized the work of faculty, staff and students who participated in the process and Sasaki Associates, who facilitated the work.

As in former plans, the new document calls for making North Campus a more vibrant and livable space that is socially richer, easier to get to, and more convenient to get around.

“The updated plan begins to add more specificity to the concepts that have guided our thinking about North Campus,” Gott said. “It starts to translate how you achieve the vision of creating vitality, collegiality and a sense of place.”

Possible components, she said, are directing infill development to the core of North Campus to achieve greater density and more pedestrian presence. Also being considered are development of public goods spaces that provide areas for the arts and performances, places for people to gather casually, retail opportunities, and student services, all intended to enrich campus life. The planners will look to the small yet real things that define a neighborhood she said, such as providing somewhere for people to get a cup of coffee.

The goals also call for making North Campus more walkable while preserving green space. The potential minor realignment of roads was identified as a possible way to improve all modes of transportation, and the plan also calls for preserving flexibility to accommodate a possible future high capacity mass transit corridor from Central Campus to North Campus, and within North Campus.

“Our plans will embody a commitment to environmental stewardship,” Gott said in describing plans to preserve green space and develop outdoor recreation areas. “We will recognize and respect natural features that are integral to the identity and character of North Campus.”

Gott also suggested that plans may call for the redevelopment of Northwoods and the resuse of the area in a flexible way for academic, research, residential, retail, clinical and mixed use. Maximum flexibility will be the byword for a plan to redevelop in those areas, she said.