By SUSAN JONES
It’s pretty easy to see at a glance that Oakland is in a construction boom — just count the cranes, scaffolding and fences.
You’ll find cranes towering over three Pitt projects — the Wellness and Recreation Center on O’Hara Street, the Arena and Sports Performance Center next to the Pete and at Thaw Hall — and at the site for a new UPMC hospital on Fifth Avenue in front of Presbyterian Hospital.
Even if you’re not on campus or don’t want to take the walk up the hill, you can see the progress being made on a couple of Pitt projects through newly installed webcams:
The two projects are on schedule to be completed by fall 2024 and fall 2025, respectively.
The nine-story, 270,000-square-foot recreation center will be open to Pitt students, faculty and staff, and will focus on physical and mental wellness. It has a projected construction budget of $250 million.
The Arena and Sports Performance Center is part of Pitt Athletics’ Victory Heights project. The $240 million project will include a center for strength and conditioning, sports medicine, nutrition, and mental well-being needs for 16 of Pitt's 19 intercollegiate athletics programs and a 3,000-seat arena for gymnastics, volleyball and wrestling. The building will sit in the bowl next to the Petersen Events Center and have a green roof accessible to the public.
In addition to these large, highly visible projects, there is plenty of other construction going on in Oakland, both on and off campus.
Thaw Hall roof: Researchers currently are reviewing the roof of Thaw Hall — the oldest building on the Oakland campus that was built specifically for the University and a contributing property to the Schenley Farms National Historic District — to figure out the best want to make repairs. Significant deterioration was found in the original concrete roof deck that supports the building’s copper roof, requiring replacement of the roof and cornice at an estimated cost of $14 million. Internal abatement work also is ongoing.
Heinz Chapel Fleche: The copper panels covering the structural steel on the Heinz Chapel spire have been removed and taken to an off-site location for inspection and repair. Inspections found that the spire, which was built in 1938, had significant deterioration of the underlying structural steel. Because of the meticulous work needed on the historic structure, there is no timetable for when it will be completed.
Chilled water plant (above): The new chilled water plant on upper campus, next to the Pitt Sports Dome, is in the final testing phase and will be operational by the end of the year. The plant is needed to support the new rec center and arena. It also ties into the other chilled water plants on campus, which builds in a redundancy.
Hillside: Work continues on the upper campus hillside. When completed it will include pedestrian pathways, outdoor spaces and a sustainable stormwater management system.
Fifth and Halket: A beam signing was held recently for the core and shell of the new building at Fifth Avenue and Halket Street. The building will support Health Sciences programming. The facility’s fit out and tenants have not been finalized. The interior design of the 10-story building will be designed to meet the needs of the University programs that eventual inhabit it.
BioForge: The design work is ongoing for the 185,000-gross-square-foot building within the Hazelwood Green development along the Monongahela River. This summer, the Board of Trustees Property and Facilities Committee approved $120 million to build the “core and shell” of the biomanufacturing facility that will bring commercial cell and gene therapy manufacturing to Pittsburgh. The University has signed a lease agreement with ElevateBio Base Camp Inc. to occupy 74 percent of that space. The University plans to begin construction once the site pad is ready, targeting fall 2024, with exterior construction scheduled to be complete in the first half of 2025.
UPMC Tower at Presbyterian Hospital: The largest single project in Oakland isn’t one of Pitt’s. Construction on UPMC’s new bed tower in front of Presbyterian Hospital is in full swing. Traffic and parking remain restricted on DeSoto Street and on one lane of Fifth Avenue in front of the project. The 900,000-square-foot, 17-story inpatient hospital will have 636 private rooms. It is expected to be completion by fall 2026, so don’t expect those cranes to go away anytime soon.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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