More than four acres of campus pavement is scheduled to be removed from campus this year to enhance green space on campus, an Office of Physical Plant official said.

"If we are able to find sidewalks that duplicate other sidewalks or are very underused, we will be demolishing the sidewalks and returning them to green space," Office of Physical Plant (OPP) spokesman Paul Ruskin said.

Tom Flynn, OPP senior landscape architect, has been working on the project for the past year and believes it will take at least another year to complete it. He said he is unsure how much the total project will cost.

Flynn has proposed to reduce 16,000 square feet of pavement on Shortlidge Road by creating a boulevard down the middle of the road with trees. Currently, the street contains a paved middle section mainly used by students trying to cross the street. The Shortlidge Road project would cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars," Flynn said.

OPP operational funding covers the cost of the project, Ruskin said.

To evaluate sidewalks on campus, Flynn not only determines if a sidewalk is redundant but also measures its width.

"The point of the study is to evaluate pavement on campus and determine if it is still valid in its current location or size for the way our campus is today," Flynn said.

Flynn said while some walkways on campus are too wide, others are too narrow, and he said he would be evaluating these walkways as well to determine whether they need extra width.

Other places on campus are also seeing reductions in pavement. The renovation of Borland Lab will yield more than 15,000 square feet of green space once completed. More than 10,000 square feet of pavement will be demolished near the IST walkway.

Another project would require eliminating walkways as well as making some wider around the Obelisk.

"There's a lot of spider's web of sidewalks," Flynn said. "I believe that by pairing up all those sidewalks and re-paving in a more logical pattern and making sure we're connecting the same destination, we can then show a net reduction of pavement [around the Obelisk]."

The reduction of campus pavement will have environmental benefits such as reducing the amount of water that drains into pipes, Flynn said.

"By reducing the amount of pavement there will be increased infiltration of storm water back into the soil rather than into the storm pipes," he said.

Some students believe the project will be beneficial to the university in the long run.

"Sidewalks are really important for students to get to class," Kerry Deutsch (freshman-marketing) said. "But if they're putting in natural resources then that's beneficial to our campus too."

Other students didn't think the project was worthy of spending a lot of money.

"I think that's fine if they feel the need to do that," Liz Willis (sophomore-communication sciences and disorders) said. "If this is a project that they're spending a lot of money on, then I think that's ridiculous."

Other students said they thought the money could be put to better use.

"Shouldn't they be doing something more with their time and money?" Stephanie Opalinski (sophomore-Spanish) said. "It's unimportant and stupid to be taking out sidewalks."

Another student said she thought the university should prioritize its projects.

"They need to fix supplemental housing and prioritize their money and efforts," Carly Proper (sophomore-psychology) said.