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April 1, 2004

Chevron Only Pittsburgh Campus Construction Project Over Budget

All but one of the construction projects on the Pittsburgh campus are on schedule and within budget, Pitt officials told a University Senate committee.

Upgrading the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems of the Chevron Science Center will cost at least one-third more than its original price tag of $6 million, according to Ana Guzman, associate vice chancellor for Facilities Management.

Guzman and Eli Shorak, associate vice chancellor for business, proffered a construction status report March 22 to the plant utilization and planning (PUP) committee.

“The scope of the Chevron project is to replace the ventilation systems and air handlers that are more than 35 years old, but there is a funding issue,” Guzman said. “We realized when the project came to us and we did a second [analysis] that it was going to come in over-budget. So we went back to the state to ask for $2.5 million in additional funding.”

The state’s Department of General Services had released $6 million for the project under the initial cost evaluation, and Pitt expects the state will increase its funding, Guzman said.

“We’re now waiting for legislative approval. The major challenge of the project is to renovate systems without disrupting or with very little disruption of all the people and their research in the building,” she said. “So we’re putting all the air-handling equipment at the top of the building to supply 100 percent outdoor air to the labs, and doing most of the work at the exterior of the building.”

Supplemental ventilation ductwork shafts will be added to the building façade. Then the existing distribution ductwork will be connected to the new system and the outmoded air-handling units will be removed, Guzman said.

The work also will include modifications to existing duct- work, installation of new chilled-water piping, steam piping, insulation, electrical wiring and controls and the demolition or removal of the existing system and obsolete equipment.

“It’s one of those projects that either you do the whole thing or you don’t do it,” Guzman said. Pending state legislature approval, Pitt hopes to start the project in the next couple months and finish in approximately one year.

Including the $6 million already released for the Chevron project, the state has released a total of $42.5 million for current Pittsburgh campus construction.

(Facilities Management maintains a web site for information on state-funded major construction projects at: www.umc.pitt.edu/renovate.)

“With the change of state administration, there was a change in the position of the Department of General Services, which used to implement the project themselves whenever there was state money involved,” Guzman pointed out. “Projects are still designed under state supervision. However, the [Rendell] administration has been very receptive to delegating projects and allowing Facilities Management to implement them,” which gives the University more flexibility to prioritize projects, she said.

An example of that flexibility is the current Cathedral of Learning renovation project, one of several projects that the state has delegated to the University.

Phase 1 of that project, which began in January and is expected to conclude in December, consists of installing forced air ventilation, air conditioning and related equipment, temperature controls, sprinklers and upgrades of electrical systems to 49 classrooms and some offices on the second and third floors of the Cathedral.

Obsolete air conditioning equipment that feeds the 7th, 8th and 9th floors and fire sprinkler protection of these floors also will be replaced.

The state has released $5.9 million for Cathedral renovations.

“Because the state budget was limited, the decision was made not to do the Nationality Classrooms, because we would have to spend much more funding per room in order to outfit them properly,” Guzman told the PUP committee. “So at this point the idea was: ‘Let’s do as many rooms as we can.’ Hopefully, eventually, we will do the Nationality Rooms. And [during construction of] the latest Nationality Rooms to be built, we have been putting in the preliminary accommodations like sprinklers, so it would not be as difficult to do them later.”

The phase 1 Cathedral project is being completed in two stages. Currently, the Bellefield Avenue side of the building is being renovated and is scheduled to be completed in June. The second stage will immediately follow the first and will cover the Cathedral’s Bigelow Boulevard side.

To expedite the project, work on phase 1 is being done in two shifts, the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift and the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift, Guzman added. “It also took considerable coordination and cooperation with the Registrar’s office and the Provost’s office to accommodate these renovations, because they had to give up these classrooms for a long period of time. It’s the only way we could do it.”

Other Pittsburgh campus construction projects include:

• The Clapp/Langley/Crawford (CLC) complex.

“Originally, the state approved $5.5 million to start infrastructure improvements in the CLC,” Guzman said. “But we realized we couldn’t implement changes to the infrastructure without moving some labs out of the building.”

So Pitt shifted plans and decided to first build an addition to Langley Hall, which will add 50,000 gross sq. ft. of space for biology research laboratories and ancillary spaces. The project also includes infrastructure work, such as the installation of new plumbing, HVAC, fire protection and laboratory systems on the 2nd and 4th floors of Langley Hall, in preparation for laboratory renovations in those areas.

The state has released $25.5 million for the project, dubbed CLC complex phase 1-A expansion.

“The construction bids have gone out, but there is some concern,” Guzman said. “One issue we face — really so does the whole construction industry — is that the price of steel has escalated, up 10 percent, and some say it might get as high as up 40 percent.

Steel is required not only for the building’s structure but for piping, door frames and other infrastructure, she pointed out. “So, it’s a big question mark right now,” Guzman said.

The CLC expansion project will begin following confirmation of the bids, and tentatively is expected to be completed in fall 2005.

• Trees Hall general renovations ($5.1 million of state money) and Carillo Steam Plant construction ($22 million split among Pitt, UPMC and the School District of Pittsburgh.)

The Trees Hall project includes replacing the building’s roof, providing increased access to the racquetball courts, modifying spectator railings at the pool, upgrading the electrical system, installing a new emergency generator, replacing the fire alarm system, upgrading the air-conditioning system and refurbishing the elevator and some areas of the building.

Concurrently, Pitt is building the Carillo Steam Plant into the back side of Trees, Guzman said, to provide a reliable source of steam. “Most of our future capacity is going to be needed on our upper campus,” she said, with the construction of the Biomedical Science Tower 3 and the connection of Trees Hall and Fitzgerald Field House to the central steam system. The latter two buildings are currently heated by three less efficient in-house boilers.

UPMC plans to connect Montefiore hospital into the system, Guzman said, and the Pittsburgh school district also will use some of the steam.

“The new steam plant is designed for a maximum of 600,000-lb. capacity,” Guzman said. “We’re looking at 100,000-lb. capacity use at the beginning, so we’ll be prepared for any future expansion on the upper campus.”

Construction of the steam plant will start in the next month, with completion expected in early 2005, she said.

• Phase 1 of Posvar Hall renovations.

Most of the first of two renovation phases of Posvar Hall are complete, Guzman told the PUP committee.

The project, which is funded by Office of the Provost reserve funding at a cost of $6.16 million, renovated several areas in Posvar Hall, primarily on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors, affecting the School of Education, the departments of economics and Africana studies and the University Center for International Studies.

“Phase 2 will begin after [most] students leave for the summer,” Guzman reported.

The phase 2 renovations will include expanding the contiguous area for the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs on the 3rd floor, as well as renovations of classrooms and other spaces. The project also will provide improved aesthetics, including enhanced lighting and noise abatement, and easier navigation with more distinctive unit entrances and a clearer room numbering scheme.

• Associate Vice Chancellor Shorak reported at the PUP meeting that a new 9-story undergraduate residence hall with a 420-bed capacity will be ready for occupancy by fall term. “It’s really going to be an attractive residence hall, with a magnificent view,” Shorak said.

The as yet unnamed dormitory, built on the site of razed Pennsylvania Hall, will have two types of accommodations. Student suites will house four students in two bedrooms, with two full bathrooms and a common living area. Other student “hotel rooms” will house two students in one bedroom, somewhat bigger than the suite bedrooms, with one bathroom.

“These are fully equipped rooms with cable and phones and Internet ports, so from the students’ point of view, these are very attractive,” Shorak said.

At a cost of $22.1 million paid for from auxiliary debt, the new dormitory is part of the University’s strategy to eventually guarantee four-year, on-campus housing to undergraduates who request it, Shorak said.

Pitt has no immediate plans to construct more housing, Shorak said, but has identified some potential areas for expansion on the upper campus. “The likelihood is that future residence halls will be built on the upper campus where the focus has moved since the opening of the Petersen Events Center,” he said. “We will be continuing to monitor the demand from students for on-campus housing. The provost’s goal is to work toward having a four-year guarantee for undergraduate housing. Right now we guarantee three years.”

• Shorak also reported on the status of a recent Pitt purchase, the three-lot property at the northwest corner of Forbes Avenue and Bouquet Street, site of Oakland Typewriter, Crazy Mocha and the former Burger King. Pitt paid $1,675,000 from property acquisition funds for the 4,500 sq. ft. site.

Pitt has no firm plans yet for the site, Shorak said. “Those buildings are in bad shape. It’s not worth putting money into [the Burger King site] to renovate it.”

Zoning regulations would limit any new building to 6 stories, or 85 feet high. Should Pitt decide to erect a new building on the site, “We would welcome a retail anchor tenant for the first floor at least, if not all the upper floors, as part of our goal to maintain the health of retail business in Oakland,” Shorak said. “We would also have to work with Oakland Typewriter and Crazy Mocha to relocate them or make some accommodations for them.”

—Peter Hart


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