Planners from Perkins and Will invited the public to participate in an open house, held last week, to share feedback and provide input on what they’d like to see and on the proposed ideas for the campus expansion, including the possibility of student housing.
“Think of a campus like a small, little city,” said Andrew Broderick, a campus planner for Perkins and Will. “There are layers to it. There’s utilities, there’s roads, there’s parking lots, there’s landscape, there’s buildings.”
Perkins and Will is working with a team of firms, including Nelson and Nygaard on transportation and parking, and Brailsford and Dunlavey related to real estate and student housing.
The master planning will also help make the university campus in Hamilton’s Riverview neighborhood “a more welcoming place, a place for gathering, a place for knowledge-sharing, and idea-sharing,” Broderick said.
The master plan will be tied into Miami University Hamilton’s educational goals as outlined in the systemwide strategic plan MiamiTHRIVE.
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Within two-years’ time, the college will incorporate polytechnic programming at the Hamilton campus. Phase I of the Advanced Manufacturing and Workforce Hub project launches in a few months, which includes renovating 70,000 square feet of the Hub’s 300,000 square-foot building at the former Vora Tech Park.
Moira Casey, Miami Hamilton’s interim dean, said the polytechnic program is not just a model of education, but “it also seeks to really meet specific workforce needs.”
“We’re talking to industries, finding out what is it that they need, wheWre are the gaps in their talent pipeline and in which areas,” said Casey. And then we’re finding out from them what degree they need in order to do that job."
With many of the degrees Miami Hamilton may offer, it would also include stackable degrees, where a student can earn a certificate that can be built upon to earn an associate’s degree and ultimately a bachelor’s degree.
“We want to have what a person needs to get out and get into the workforce,” Casey said. “And with the partnership with Butler Tech, we can move students into high schools into our associate’s degree program.”
Currently, an arrangement with Butler Tech facilitates the movement of BT engineering students into Miami Hamilton’s engineering technology program with almost all of their college requirements satisfied.
A final plan by Perkins and Will is expected to be finalized in the mid-to-late first quarter of 2026.
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