Dallas set for George W Bush library

DALLAS: Southern Methodist University in Dallas has been selected as the home for US President George W. Bush’s presidential library, the school said on Friday. The university had been widely seen as the front-runner to house the facilities which will consist of a library for the Bush administration’s documents, a museum and a public policy institute.

Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale University School of Architecture, will design the buildings. Last year, a group of Methodist ministers urged SMU to reject any plans to build the library, saying Bush’s stance on issues such as preemptive war conflicted with those of the church. Despite that, the university’s board continued its seven-year effort to lure the library to the campus.

SMU was founded in 1911 by a predecessor of the United Methodist Church. First lady Laura Bush graduated from the private university in 1968 and is on its board of trustees. The other Texas schools that had been in contention included Baylor University in Waco and the University of Dallas.

The university, which has almost 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students, is in University Park, a wealthy, and mostly white, independent city almost surrounded by Dallas. The Bushes are expected to return to Dallas after he leaves office, and the city has been buzzing for months with speculation about where they will live.

The foundation will not break ground on the centre until next year, Evans said, and is unlikely to be completed for five years.