East Pyne prepares to house faculty by fall semester

Construction continues to progress throughout campus, as many buildings undergo extensive renovation. The Department of Physical Planning released a general timeline for the ongoing projects, indicating East Pyne will be ready for use starting in the fall.

While construction has not begun on Whitman College, the sixth addition to the residential college system, the structure is expected to be completed in the spring of 2006, director of physical planning Jon Hlafter said.

For Whitman College, the trustees have recently decided to use Argillite, a traditional stone used in many other University dormitories, said Hlafter. Work is now underway to obtain the stone and prepare it for construction.

"This process of quarrying the stone and having it cut will take many months," Hlafter said. "The exterior stone walls will be under construction through 2006."

Other projects

Other projects are already well underway and will be functional in the upcoming months.

Though the exact day of completion is unknown, the first floor renovations to the laboratories of the Institute for Integrative Genomics will be ready by the end of this semester and they will be occupied by the summer, and the basement is also being worked on, Hlafter said.

Improvements to East Pyne are also expected to be completed in phases during the fall.

"The academic offices of the dozen or more departments or programs in the building will be in place for the fall semester," Hlafter said.

Support nonprofit student journalism. Donate to the ‘Prince’. Donate now »

There will also be a new language laboratory and auditory in the expanded basement level. Space has also been excavated underneath the courtyard to make way for new rooms that the University hopes will be available at this time.

Construction plans have also been slightly modified for East Pyne.

"The Chancellor Green portion of the project which was initially only planned to be a library will have a more complicated set of uses such as a study lounge and public assembly area," Hlafter said. These additions will not be available until next spring.

Art library

Renovations to the art library are also underway and will include an underground expansion that is expected to be finished later this year. A penthouse addition with study spaces for students is being constructed above the original library wing, and an elevator will be installed on the Dod Hall side.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The elevator will provide previously unavailable wheelchair accessibility to that part of McCormick, Hlafter said.

The new dormitories on Poe Field are also under construction and will not be completed for a little over a year. They will be occupied for the first time in the fall semester of 2004, Hlafter said.

"One of the developments in that program is that in the basement of the building there will be an area devoted to music and another area for the WPRB radio station," Hlafter said. "When Holder is renovated in 2004 or 2005 it will be necessary to move the radio station out and into the basement of the new dorm."

Holder will be among many dormitories within the residential colleges that will undergo extensive construction in the near future.

Major improvements may be expected in Brown and Forbes and Butler colleges, all including extensive construction, Hlafter added.

These changes reflect only a small sample of the long list of construction projects the University anticipates.

"The University's plan over the decades is to continue improving dormitories one at a time," Hlafter said. "However, having as many residential colleges as we do, you can start one each year and it'll take a third of the century to complete construction. It's a longterm process."