New building for School of Health and Rehab Science brings new opportunities for Pitt students and faculty

Pitt’s new building for the School of Health and Rehab Science opened in January 2026 on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Halket Street in Oakland. In the building, students have the opportunity to use new classrooms, labs, workspaces and offices.

Scheduled to be finished in December 2025, the new building houses most of SHRS’ 30-plus programs. SHRS is currently the fourth-largest school on Pitt’s campus, with more than 1,800 undergraduate and graduate students. The new building acts as a hub of education opportunities for all SHRS students, including those located at Bakery Square, Bridgeside Point, the Neuromuscular Research Lab, the Southside Works Box Office and other locations.

According to SHRS Interim Dean David C. Beck, the building marks new opportunities for advancements in research and education for SHRS and the SHRS community as the school continues to grow.

“This space will advance all members of the SHRS community as we increasingly collaborate and learn together,” Beck said. “Most importantly, the design team and SHRS leaders have been committed to making this the best space possible for our students — from the classrooms to their lounge spaces, and everywhere in between.”

The 159,000 square-foot, 10-story building serves as a hub for SHRS on floors 3-8, with floors 9-10 occupied by the School of Medicine and the Provost Office on floor two. It deliberately features designs to serve the school’s current and future needs with classrooms, conference rooms, clinical skills labs and community spaces.

Danielle Smith, a junior communication science major, said the building is an upgrade from the previous SHRS locations, which were split across three buildings along Forbes Avenue.

“It’s a more comfortable space and more open,” Smith said. “So there’s more people staying after classes and before classes.”

Nicole Kosco, a graduate student in the Doctor of Chiropractic program, particularly likes the building’s new study spaces.

“We have a lot of different areas to study and spaces where you can get together with classmates or just study by yourself, which I think is nice,” Kosco said.

Caitlin Peiritsch, a junior communication science major, highlighted how the new space encourages teamwork between students.

“It’s a lot nicer, and there’s definitely more space, so I think it’s easier to get together and collaborate,” Peiritsch said.

Jason Bohland, an assistant professor in the department of communication science and disorders, said the building has been beneficial in encouraging collaboration between the separate existing research clusters.

“There are many labs in this new space that are much better tailored to a team science approach,” Bohland said. “Students and staff are sitting together in their day-to-day shared conference rooms, behavioral testing rooms, etc. I think that just the sort of design that went into putting together these shared cluster spaces were about thinking, what are the needs? And not just what are the needs today, but what are the needs that might emerge?” 

Despite the new building’s proximity to UPMC Montefiore, UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Magee-Womens hospitals, the building’s distance from central campus makes it a difficult commute for some students, including Kosco.

“I’m a commuter, so finding parking is pretty difficult based on the location where they put the building,” Kosco said. “Sometimes it has made me late to class, trying to find somewhere to park.” 

Smith agreed — the location is not ideal, but the improvements of the new building make up for it.

“It is definitely farther, but I think it’s worth it,” Smith said. “The location of it is definitely my only qualm with the building.”

Bohland said the building’s design supports the academic and research collaboration of both faculty members and students.

“We have lots of little breakout rooms, long conference rooms, things like that,” Bohland said. “I think [we] will kind of discover things a year from now that they didn’t know were here.”

Bohland believes the building’s design will be particularly beneficial to Ph.D. and research students when gaining lab experience.

“I think there will naturally be more touch points, more interactions between people from different labs than there were previously,” Bohland said. “I think a big goal here is to write more collaborative grants, do more work that crosses sort of the natural pieces that any individual lab is working on and especially for thinking about Ph.D. students, I think that’s a super exciting opportunity.” 

In addition to new spaces for collaboration, Bohland said there was an increase in resources for his department’s research. For the Speech-Language Pathology program, there was an increased availability of soundproof booths — something that is particularly valuable to researchers, Bohland said. According to Bohland, there is also now a prototyping and engineering room for the department to develop new technological ideas and experimental designs.

“I think the building is a place where there’s big changes in how our clinical students will have opportunities to learn hands on and separate into smaller groups. That is something that wasn’t really well supported in the previous space [in Forbes Tower],” Bohland said.

Bohland said he’s ready to explore what all the new SHRS building has to offer, team and resource-wise. 

“A big part of what I personally really like about research is the team aspect of it, and so to have even more opportunities to kind of build those collaborations, I think is really exciting for sure,” Bohland said.