University pulls trigger on renovation plans for on-campus facilities

Students and staff traveling to the Cathedral of Learning’s upper floors will soon be freed from their subjection to the building’s fickle elevator system.

On Tuesday morning, Pitt’s Property and Facilities Committee of the Board of Trustees approved a $10 million renovation to the elevator system, which has not been replaced since it was installed in 1931, along with an additional $48 million for other projects across campus.

Almost the entirety of the funding for these projects comes from the state.

According to a news release from the University, the renovation, which has no start date as of yet, will feature a “destination-based” system. Users will be able to enter their desired floor into a computer interface, which will direct them to the most convenient elevator.

According to the committee, this investment will save both time and energy.

Tori Lawson, a freshman majoring in statistics, occasionally uses the elevator to visit her professor’s office on the 26th floor. She says the unpredictable nature of the elevator system in the Cathedral makes this a difficult task at times.

“I get confused with these elevators,” she said.

In Lawson’s experience, certain elevators only go to certain floors. She also noted that lights indicating which buttons are pushed often don’t work and are reset once the elevator hits the ground floor.

Lawson said these are minor, but irritating, inconveniences, so she uses the stairs when she can.

“I walk to the sixth floor,” Lawson said. “But that’s no big deal.”

According to Ken Service, Pitt’s vice chancellor for communications, the construction will be completed in phases. Some elevators will be available while others remain under construction.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said in an email that Pitt is still hammering out the project’s specifics.

“We are in the design phase of the project now,” he said.

Fedele added that all eight main elevators would be opened to all floors after renovation is complete. Several smaller elevators that service the upper floors will be included in the project, as well.

The committee also gave a green light to funding on four other projects at the meeting.

That funding consisted of $34 million for a complete renovation of Clapp Hall’s interior classrooms and labs, $5.5 million to renovate the 13th-floor laboratory in the Chevron Science Center, $5 million to upgrade the Regional Industrial Development Corp.’s cooling and electrical systems and $3.9 million for a helium-recovery system in the mid-campus complex, which includes Allen Hall, Old Engineering Hall and the Space Research Coordination Center.