Plans underway for new Hillel building

The Hillel building at 202 S. 36th Street will be torn down and a new, larger facility erected in its place as early as the fall of 2002, Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin said in July. Though construction costs have not yet been determined and plans are still preliminary, a recent proposal written by Brochin and Rabbi Howard Alpert, executive director of Hillel, said the new building may include a dining room with a seating capacity of 350, two auditoriums, two student lounges, a larger library, a game room and two seminar rooms. Officials are also considering adding more programming space for student performance groups, exhibition space for small programs, administrative and student offices and a rooftop patio in the new facility. Once a final proposal has been drafted, Hillel will embark on what Alpert called an "ambitious fundraising campaign," with the expectation that parents, alumni and other members of the University community will finance the entire cost of constructing the building. The current building, built in the 1930s, occupies approximately 11,000 square feet. The soon-to-be constructed facility will likely be more than twice that size, Brochin said. Hillel officials said that they hope to begin demolition of the current building next summer. University officials announced in the spring that Kosher Dining would relocate this summer to 4040 Locust Street -- a site formerly occupied by Boccie Pizza and Saladalley -- after its former location, also the site of the Faculty Club, was chosen to become the new home of the Graduate School of Fine Arts. In the interim period between the demolition of the old building and the construction of the new one, Hillel will lease another section of the building at 4040 Locust Street, formerly occupied by Urban Outfitters, which will then host much of Hillel's programming and many events. According to Brochin, there had long been concerns among Hillel officials and Penn students that the current building was too small. Hillel has worked during the last 15 years to alleviate the space crunch on campus, renovating the building itself in 1984 and helping create the Jewish Activities Center in the Quadrangle three years ago. But the construction of a new facility represents the most ambitious effort to date in providing more space for the Jewish community. Brochin and Alpert recently made site visits to the Hillel buildings at Harvard, Princeton, Tufts and Yale universities in an effort to gather some ideas for Penn's new Hillel building.