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Apparently UNL wants Hendrickson's land, and more,
but it's unclear what they want to do with it.
NL Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance,
Jack Goebel said that although there are no
specific projects planned for the area, UNL must
be ready to respond to expansion opportunities
that arise.
UNL's expansion plan dates to 1968 when the NU
Board of Regents passed a proposal that would extend
UNL's City Campus boundary to 22nd Street. Since then
UNL has purchased desired land as it became available,
Goebel said.
1 f y arking is terrible on N through S streets.
JJ We end up loading handicapped people
into vans in the middle of the street
-2-L because we can't get to the curb," said
Christina Godfrey, director of the Malone
Community Center at 21st and U streets.
Godfrey said that as the university expands, it makes
the Malone residents feel like they're living "on an
island."
"We know this big monster is coming," Godfrey said
referring to UNL. "But when?" she asks.
UNL officials are neither secretive or apologetic about
"We know this big monster
is coming, but when?"
Godfrey
UNL already owns 70 percent of the three block area
between Vine and S streets, worth about $150,000, UNL
Business Manager, Rudy Coffey said.
Kim Todd, a landscape architect for UNL, said UNL's
primary interest in the land from 19th to 22nd streets
and from Vine to S streets is in attracting research to the
university for a combination of public and private use.
"The university would try to attract businesses it could
use for research in the high-tech areas," Todd said.
The university is a changing environment, Goebel said,
and being prepared for change and growth is necessary.
UNL always has to be thinking of where the university will
be in the future, Goebel said.
"Anyone who wasn't thinking of that would be derelict
of their duties," Goebel said.
Derelict or not, some Malone residents don't think
UNL should be spending money on land for expansion,
Hendrickson said.
"I think they're too damn big for their britches. They
(UNL) already have Whittier (Junior High School at 22nd
and Vine streets) and they're just letting it sit there until
it falls to the ground," he said.
Charley Stephenn, 2 146 S St., agrees with Hendrickson.
"They've been buying up all this land. Now all they
have is a bunch of empty lots and they can't even keep
grass on the lots."
Stephenn, who has lived in the Malone neighborhood
for 30 years, said he doesn't understand why UNL is
buying the land.
"If it took 100 years to get this side of 17th Street," he
said, "It will take 400 years to get to 22nd."
Carl Kopines, resident manager of the Malone Manor
said that if the university expands its boundary to 22nd
Street, it will engulf the manor and make the Malone area
hard for residents of the manor to live in. Malone Manor,
at 22nd and U streets, houses about 50 elderly residents,
some of whom are disabled.
Kopines said that for many years the Malone people
have fought to preserve their community while UNL
"seems to be nibbling away at it piece by piece."
One hardship Malone residents face is the lack of
parking space for UNL students and Malone community
residents.
expansion, Coffey said.
"It's all in the eyes of the beholder," Coffey said, "the
university is people just like them. Malone Community
Center has only been around for 50 years and UNL has
been here for 150. The city would be far worse off
without the university."
Last December, UNL purchased the Rock Island Right
of Way between R and Vine streets along 19th Street for
about $975,000. The land will be used for parking and
possibly an expansion of recreation fields and bike paths ,
said UNL landscape architect, Kim Todd.
While UNL has been acquiring land, Malone residents
have continued to improve their community, Kopines
said. Construction of the Malone Manor was finished in
February, 1986 and the Malone Community Center was
built in 1981, Kopines said.
Before then the city had plans to build the Northeast
Radial, a thoroughfare from Holdrege Street along 20th
to downtown Lincoln, cutting a path through the middle
of the neighborhood.
Don Goei, Malone community
resident, works as a repair man
for the owner of the house at
2245 S St.
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