Update / Follow-up on the news

Chapman University’s expansion plans have sailed past the City Council and even won accolades from a onetime opponent, the Old Towne Preservation Assn.

The plan calls for increasing the school’s size by four acres and eventually increasing full-time enrollment from 3,000 to 4,000 students.

Part of that enlarged student body is expected to fill the new law school, which opened last year at a temporary site in Anaheim. About 200 students now study law at Chapman, but officials hope that will grow to 432 prospective lawyers when the new law school building opens on Glassell Street in fall 1998.

The site of the new campus will include a three-level parking structure for as many as 800 cars. Plans also call for a new business and information technology building and the Wallace All Faiths Chapel.

Anne Siebert of the Old Towne Preservation Assn. commended the university for including nearby homeowners in planning sessions.

“Because of the open communication, we’re all on the same side now,” she said. The council agreed and recently approved the plan by a 4-0 vote, with Councilman Dan Slater abstaining because of a conflict.