Close To Home: Work On UCSB East Entrance Gateway Arch May Begin In Late Spring

An artist's conception shows the Henley Gate, with its arch
running across entry and exit lanes, as the final element in
the new East Entrance to campus.

The award-winning design for the campus’s East Entrance will soon have a privately financed, arched gateway to announce the entry, according to Marc Fisher, associate vice chancellor, campus design and facilities. Work on the gateway element will begin around the end of May, if all goes according to a UCSB plan recently approved by the California Coastal Commission.

“The commissioners were highly complimentary of the (gateway) design and of our environmental stewardship (in general),” Fisher reported.

The $2.6 million project, which includes landscaping as well as support pillars and a wall with the University seal and the campus name, was entirely financed by private donors, said Martie Levy, director of capital development. Chief among them were Jeff and Judy Henley, whose name will be on the gateway, Marvel Kirby, Fredric Steck and Kelly LeBrock, and an anonymous donor.

Design credit for the arched gateway is shared among Henley, whose vision it was, Fisher, and architect Charles Woodburn, according to Deedee Ciancola, project manger. Landscape designer Phil Suding was “the prime consultant,” said Ciancola, but many other specialists were required for coming up with the physical structure and lighting elements as well as landscape.

The East Entrance roundabout and road project, which is managed by UCSB engineer Croft Yjader, earlier this year won a Project of the Year Award from the Santa Barbara-Ventura branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

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