University Times

More than $62 million in construction and renovation projects, including construction of new medical student housing, improvements to Benedum Hall and an addition to the Plum Borough Research Center, were approved April 10 by the property and facilities committee of Pitt’s Board of Trustees.

An $18.2 million housing project on Darragh Street across from Salk Hall and the Fitzgerald Field House will accommodate 184 medical students in four four-story buildings totaling a combined 99,400 sq. ft. The one- and two-bedrooom apartments will be similar in appearance to the Bouquet Gardens residence halls. The complex, scheduled for completion in summer 2007, will include parking for 52 cars.

The Darragh Street complex will allow medical students, currently housed in Ruskin Hall, to live closer to School of Medicine classrooms. Ruskin Hall’s 176 apartments will be renovated and converted into undergraduate housing for use starting in fall 2008.

The $22.2 million in upgrades to Benedum Hall will enable the School of Engineering to update its laboratory and classroom space. School officials plan more flexible labs that will promote collaboration and can be reconfigured to meet changing research needs.

The 1960s-vintage building also will gain an entire new floor with the addition of a 27,000-sq.-ft. mezzanine level between the structure’s basement and sub-basement.

The project is being funded through state capital budget funds.

An 8,000-sq.-ft. addition to link the Primate Rearing Facility and Animal Holding Facility at the School of Medicine’s Plum Borough Research Center will enable the buildings to be consolidated into a single facility. The changes, which include relocating animal care and use functions from the Primate Research Laboratory into the new combined facility, will enable the University to meet federal regulations and international accreditation standards.

Other improvements include upgrades to the existing buildings’ mechanical, telecommunications and security systems and the addition of new offices, research labs, locker rooms and break rooms.

The project’s $8.4 million price tag is being picked up through nearly $3 million in National Institutes of Health funding and $5.4 million from Health Sciences capital reserves.

Other projects approved by the trustees committee are:

• Improvements to the Litchfield Towers Plaza, including the installation of two skylights in the plaza near Tower C, waterproofing, new drainage systems, new handrails and additional seating and planting areas at a cost of $4.1 million.

• Replacement of 10 Scaife Hall escalators from the second through sixth floors, including the mezzanine, at a cost of $2.5 million.

• Construction of a $5.5 million “west loop” steam line system from behind Trees Hall and down Darragh Street.

• Installation of a $1.3 million emergency generator for the five Schenley Quadrangle buildings.

In other business, the trustees committee renewed two subleases of space on the fifth floor of the Cellomics Building in the Pittsburgh Technology Center. The dental school’s Center for Craniofacial and Dental Genetics has a sublease through July 2011 for 9,670 sq. ft. of space with an option through July 2016. The Molecular Medical Institute has a sublease through June 15, 2011, for 5,064 sq. ft. of space, with an option through July 2016.

The committee also approved:

• A five-year lease for 45,848 sq. ft. of space in RIDC Park for neurophysics and vaccine researchers in the School of Medicine. The lease expires on Dec. 31, 2010, but includes a five-year renewal option.

• A five-year lease renewal for the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in the Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside through June 2010, with a five-year renewal option.

—Kimberly K. Barlow