Construction continues on six projects on campus

Construction workers might be adding to buildings all around campus, but they won’t be… Construction workers might be adding to buildings all around campus, but they won’t be trekking through dorm rooms come the fall.

Pitt commissioned more than half a dozen construction projects this summer. But the two in student housing — Lothrop Hall and Bouquet Gardens  ­­— won’t affect students.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said in early August that the renovation of Lothrop Hall’s first floor would finish before students moved in, and Pitt doesn’t anticipate any disruption from the expansion of the Bouquet Gardens apartments.

An early August meeting of the Board of Trustees Property and Facilities Management Committee approved a series of construction plans for this fall. Lothrop Hall’s renovation was approved at a previous meeting and cost more than $900,000.

The Lothrop Hall construction will add 47 beds to the dormitory, bringing the building’s total to more that 700.

The Bouquet Gardens project will add 155 beds to the complex, in 48 new units. The new buildings are stationed directly south of the current complex, between Oakland Avenue and South Bouquet Street.

The construction will cost Pitt about $17 million all told, including $2.8 million that the committee approved at its February meeting.

Other construction projects include renovations in the Barco Law Building and the Concordia Club. The Barco project will include a student lounge and space for offices, and once the Concordia club is finished, it will house new offices and meeting spaces for student groups.

Pitt also approved renovations to several academic buildings, including laboratory renovations in the Chevron Science Center and work in Eberly Hall, which will get a new laboratory.

The Cathedral of Learning will receive a new sprinkler system on some of its floors, and the committee also approved a backup electrical feed for Posvar Hall, costing $1.2 million and $2.5 million, respectively.

The committee cited an electrical outage in 2006 that caused a number of buildings to shut down to keep a water cooling plant in Posvar operational as the main reason for the project there.

The total cost for all of the projects approved at the August meeting, which did not include the cost for the Lothrop Hall renovations — which had already been approved — was more than $37 million.