Capital project review delayed

Officials have confirmed that plans for capital projects on campus are behind schedule. University President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow announced last month that they were reviewing plans for all capital projects on campus. At the time, acting Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum said she "wants to have an interim set of opportunities in place no later than January 15, but if possible I would like to begin some of them as early as November 1." Rodin said last week the progress is not what she anticipated. But she assured students that progress is being made. "[The plans are] more preliminary than I might have liked at this point, but we are moving," she said. Rodin added that a lot more planning is necessary because the first set of plans were not up to her standards. "We are moving with a lot of direction, but it is requiring architectural as well as master planning," she said. "The first set of conceptual plans weren't ambitious enough. We were looking for something more ambitious." Chodorow said they are currently working on all University capital projects. One of the most complex of these capital projects is the Revlon Center, which was delayed along with the rest of the University's capital projects last month. The delay of the Revlon Center last month came after four years of planning. Several years ago, officials said the center would be complete in 1996. Former Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson chose a final plan for the center, which would have cost $40 million and consisted of two buildings with a freestanding bookstore and a black box theater, last year. But Rodin and Chodorow dismissed this plan after reviewing it, because it did not meet their standards for a student center. Rodin said the Revlon Center is the administration's first priority. "The student center is the first phase of the capital planning driving other decisions and central to it," she said. "A lot of the discussions are being driven by the needs of the student center." Daily Pennsylvanian Staff Writer Randi Feigenbaum contributed to this article.