Sedgwick County commissioners approve rezoning plan for Wichita State’s Innovation Campus

Sedgwick County commissioners on Wednesday rezoned the former Braeburn Golf Course to facilitate the development of Wichita State University’s planned Innovation Campus.

The university expansion will encompass a 120-acre site and bring as many as 10,000 additional people to work and study – and in some cases live – on the campus, said Eric King, facilities director at the university.

The WSU property is already zoned with a university overlay, which would allow for traditional college use such as an engineering building, business school building and residence halls planned for the site, said Scott Knebel of the Metropolitan Area Planning Department.

The rezone was needed to allow the innovative part of the Innovative Campus, private-sector business buildings that will collaborate with the university in on-site research and commercial activity.

“Those are what are called ‘partnership buildings,’ ” Knebel said.

The new zoning also will allow for planned mixed-use buildings that will have retail and restaurant spaces on the ground floor and apartments above, Knebel said.

Knebel said planners had met with the neighbors, who didn’t express any serious concerns about the rezoning.

There was, however, “a lot of discussion about physical improvement to the streets and drainage” around the project.

Knebel said the Planning Department will continue to meet with the neighbors on those issues.

The commission vote to rezone the former golf course was unanimous. The Planning Commission and Wichita City Council had already approved the rezoning, so the county’s approval made it a done deal.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Sedgwick County commissioners approve rezoning plan for Wichita State’s Innovation Campus."