University Times

This architect’s rendering shows the proposed 11-story dorm at the corner of Fifth Avenue and University Place, which would replace the existing Pitt surface lot and the University Place office building. The first floor of the dorm would be retail space; the second floor would house the Counseling Center and Student Health Service. Floors 3-11 would provide housing for 578 freshmen. Completion is expected in summer 2013.

Pitt’s Counseling Center and Student Health Service would move and a new traffic light would be installed at Fifth Avenue and University Place under the University’s plan to build an 11-story residence hall, according to information presented last week to city planners.

Under the city’s zoning code, dormitories require a special exception in the Educational/Medical Institution (EMI) district. Pitt’s proposal for a freshman dormitory at 121 University Place brought no objectors to a March 10 hearing before the city zoning board of adjustment. The board noted that a favorable letter had been received from a representative of the Bellefield Presbyterian Church, located next door to the proposed dormitory site. The site includes a Pitt parking lot and the 6-story University Place office building, which will be demolished.

The city Planning Commission was briefed on Pitt’s project plan at its March 8 meeting. The plan is expected to be on the commission’s agenda for action March 22.

Pitt’s plan shows retail space on the building’s first floor with the Counseling Center, currently located in the William Pitt Union, and the Student Health Service, currently in the Medical Arts Building, on the building’s second floor.

Floors 3-11 would be residential, said Eli Shorak, associate vice chancellor for Business, adding that some of the third floor would include recreational common space for residents. The main entrance for residents would be on University Place, facing the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall lawn. The health services entrance would be on the same side of the building, nearer to the neighboring University Club.

The proposed dorm would add 578 beds to the University’s on-campus housing, mostly in double rooms. The project is part of Pitt’s overall plan to increase on-campus housing, which includes concentrating freshman housing in the central campus, he said.

A traffic study by WilburSmith Associates found that with the projected increase in pedestrian traffic associated with the residence hall, on average, more than 100 people per hour would be crossing Fifth Avenue at University Place — more than double the average number observed during the 2010 study.

There is no crosswalk at that intersection, which the traffic study stated has been the scene of two reported accidents between 2005 and 2009.

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs professor Sabina Deitrick was injured when she was struck by a Port Authority bus in the counterflow lane as she crossed Fifth Avenue near that intersection in February 2009. She is co-director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR), which has offices in the University Place office building. (See March 5, 2009, University Times.) UCSUR will move to the Gold Building, 3343 Forbes Ave., this summer.

A back view of the new dorm, which abuts the Bellefield Presbyterian Church at the corner of Fifth and Thackeray.

The traffic study recommended infrastructure improvements that would make the intersection resemble the nearby intersection at Fifth and Thackeray avenues, including traffic signals and crosswalks and sidewalk bump-outs into the parking lane on the north side of Fifth Avenue. Shorak said the University would foot the bill for the intersection improvements.

Demolition of the existing office building is scheduled for this summer, with construction expected to commence in August, Shorak said. A planned two-year construction schedule would make the building ready for occupancy in July or August of 2013, he said.

—Kimberly K. Barlow