Benedum renovations underway

On any given school day at the top of the hour, a pack of students crowds around the elevators… On any given school day at the top of the hour, a pack of students crowds around the elevators in Benedum Hall, anxiously waiting to get to classrooms on the upper floors. But thanks to current renovations, waiting for an elevator in Benedum will become much less of an inconvenience.

In 1971 the original construction of Benedum Hall was completed. As the core building of Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, Benedum’s renovations will bring it well up to date on both a technological and educational level.

The first phase of construction is currently underway. A new, exterior building will connect the Benedum Hall tower to the auditorium across the plaza. This new structure will be devoted to the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative, a program that focuses on developing environmentally friendly approaches to constructional engineering.

From the outside, the sheer size of the several-story addition will make it quite a sight. The interior of the structure will provide new laboratory and research space and will also serve as a convenient means to cross from the tower to the auditorium without having to step outside.

Scheduled to begin construction this summer, the auditorium building will also undergo substantial modifications. The lecture hall will be converted from its current 500-seat configuration into five individual classrooms.

Gerald D. Holder, an engineering dean, said that this action is intended to provide better classrooms for students.

“We want to provide new, modern classrooms to our students because the condition of the classrooms in Benedum Hall is not that great right now,” Holder said.

The current classrooms in the tower will be used for faculty and laboratory space.

The new classroom venue also aims to relieve elevator-induced frustration in the tower. Students will no longer have to pile around elevators to reach their former upper-level classrooms.

“I’ve been here for over 27 years, and people have been complaining about them for over 27 years,” Holder said.

Later this year, construction of a new sub-basement level will be constructed as part of the overall renovation process to Benedum’s basement.

The basement will be transformed into a new lower plaza. It will contain 10 new classrooms, offices, a cafe and a 3,600-square-foot computer lab. The Bevier Engineering Library will also be moved to this level.

The current library on the ground floor will be converted into a reception and administration area.

As for the upper-level floors, floors four and five will be turned into research labs for the nanoengineering and bioengineering departments.

The new labs will feature larger, more open rooms so that engineers can interact more easily.

Currently the labs are composed mostly of individual rooms that inhibit interaction.

All of these extensive renovations should be finished before the end of 2010. But that’s only the first phase.

2010 will mark the beginning of the next phase of renovation. Because the engineering school is busy with the first phase of construction, plans aren’t set in stone regarding the next segment.

The engineering school hopes, however, to provide each of its six departments with a new home on floors six through 12 as part of the plan.

The completion date of the later phase has not yet been determined.

Holder sees a necessity for Benedum’s renovation regardless of the time it takes to complete.

“If we want to compete and be a top-ranked engineering school, we have to maintain world class facilities,” he said.

Holder also acknowledges that the renovations will result in not only a better facility but also the recruitment of better staff and the creation of a better learning environment. The overall status of Pitt’s engineering school will inevitably increase.

“It’s the main reason for doing this, to improve the stature and the prestige,” Holder said.

Although Pitt has already committed more than $60 million to the project, the school received additional funding from Pitt alumnus John A. Swanson.

Last semester, Swanson donated an unprecedented $41.3 million to Pitt’s engineering school. A portion of his donation is going toward the renovation. The University’s School of Engineering was recently renamed the John Swanson School of Engineering in honor of his generosity.

Benedum’s renovations had been in the planning stages for more than a year, but Mr. Swanson’s donation prodded the engineering department to fast track the project.

Students in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering have expressed mixed reactions about the changes being made to Benedum.

Pitt sophomores Samantha Renfrow and Sam Gupta both said they were in favor of the modernization.

“I feel like [Benedum’s] a little outdated, and the renovations are going to make it more modern,” Renfrow said.

Gupta agreed, but he also noted one of the construction’s hindrances.

“All the construction outside blocking the roads is a little inefficient,” he said.

For some students, the fruits of renovation will not be completed until after they graduate. They will have to bear the by-products of renovation – traffic congestion on adjacent streets and closed classrooms, for example.

“As a junior [the renovations are] not going to be finished until after I graduate, so it aggravates me a little bit,” Sam Kolman, a Pitt junior, said.