Carnegie Museum plans construction in Oakland

The Carnegie museums and library officials recently presented an extensive expansion proposal… The Carnegie museums and library officials recently presented an extensive expansion proposal to city council in hopes to increase their exhibits.

A major part of the construction plans is to expand Dinosaur Hall in the Carnegie National History Museum.

“A good portion of our dinosaurs are still in the basement of the museum,” said Dan Lagiovane, assistant director of marketing for the CNHM.

According to Lagiovane, there are a large amount of dinosaur bones and fossils still in their rocks in the basement.

One of which is an adult Camasaurs, a dinosaur with a shape similar to Diplodocus Carnegii, or “Dippy,” the statue outside the Carnegie Library.

“We will be the only museum in the world to have three Saraupod dinosaurs,” Lagiovane said. “This will make us the premiere place to see dinosaurs in the world.”

The expansion of Dinosaur Hall will create a new entrance pavilion on Forbes Avenue, two new entry roads and add short-term parking spaces in front of the library.

In addition, officials at the Carnegie museums are planning to build a six-office structure atop a new 750-space parking garage. This garage will be located behind the museums toward the Panther Hollow Bridge.

According to Lagiovane, total costs of the renovations have not been set yet because it is so early in the planning stages.

“The next step is to come up with a definite design plan,” he said.

Presently, the Carnegie has an exhibit called PaleoLab that allows the public to watch those behind the scenes as they remove the fossils from the stone.

“This is a complex project of breaking apart the fossils from parts of rocks,” said Craig Dunham, a Carnegie museum representative. “It’s a process of continued archeology before their eyes.”

This is another example of the interactive displays that museum officials are hoping to incorporate into the exhibits.

Back in the Mesozoic time, dinosaurs did not live alone, so the museum officials and a planning committee decided to put the dinosaurs back into their original habitat.

“This is what is going to make our exhibit unique,” Lagiovane said. “There will be birds, reptiles and other animals throughout the scenery to make it appear lifelike.”

The redevelopment of the Carnegie will go hand-in-hand with the renovations of nearby Schenley Plaza.

Mayor Tom Murphy joined together with the Pittsburgh Park Conservancy, The Oakland Task Force and the Pittsburgh Parking Authority to build up Schenley Plaza in attempts to reconnect Oakland to Schenley Plaza.

“The transformation of Schenley Plaza from a desolate asphalt tract into a thriving, active public plaza has been the wish of various Oakland stakeholders for quite some time,” Murphy said. “I am pleased to support this major improvement to the quality of life of our city’s civic and educational center, giving the Plaza a higher and better use. Through a public selection process guided by community stakeholders, this plaza will become Oakland’s town square.”

Plans for Schenley Plaza include food vendors, a series of gardens, informal seating and sunbathing, moveable chairs and tables, public restrooms, flowers throughout the Plaza and additional lighting.

A potential problem with the Schenley Plaza renovations is the elimination of 250 public parking spaces.

However, PPA stated that this number is less than 2 percent of the 13,000 parking spaces available in Oakland, and another addition to the plan involves adding 115 on-street parking spaces.

With the various planned development projects in Oakland going on simultaneously, there will eventually be more than 1,300 additional parking spaces within the next two to three years.

“We are very interested to do everything we can to make Oakland a more people-going place and more of an attraction,” Dunham said.