After months of delays followed by months of slow progress, the Dental School's new building is still not complete, nor will it be any time soon.
Last year, officials said the $22 million Robert Schattner Dental School Building, located on the corner of 40th and Locust streets, was slated for completion in the spring of 2002.
Now, with summer fast approaching and the building still under construction, Vice President for Facilities Services and Real Estate Services Omar Blaik said the end is not yet in sight.
"The question is when, and there are two projects that I will never give you the satisfaction of telling you when we will complete because I have no clue, and that's the cinema and Schattner," Blaik said last month before the University signed a final deal with National Amusements for the cinema site.
"Given how both of them are so delayed, it doesn't really make sense for us to put another date out there and then not show whether we will get there or not," he added.
Aside from the theater site, located at 40th and Walnut streets, Schattner may be the most delayed and troublesome building on campus. Construction on the facility, which will eventually house clinical and educational space, was halted in September 2000 when the University terminated its contract with construction company York Hunter for alleged default on the part of the firm.
In March of 2001, Penn signed a deal with York Hunter's surety company, a subsidiary of American International Group, for the surety firm to come in and finish the building.
The problems between Penn and York Hunter resulted from deadline issues. The construction company was not on track to finish the project on time. York Hunter representatives said this was because of problems with building design and materials, which the company said was the University's responsibility.
York Hunter representatives said last year that when the work stopped in September of 2000, the project was only about four months away from completion.
Back in 1998, the Schattner building was scheduled to be completed in October of 2000. Now, with any luck, the building will actually be finished a mere two years behind schedule.
University officials would "like to have it open for the school year," according to a Facilities and Real Estate Services employee familiar with the Schattner project.
Blaik, while declining to give a completion date or even season, said the building should be open by the end of the calendar year. He attributed the delays to work stoppages and start-ups caused by the problems with York Hunter.
"When we stopped the contract and the surety took over, there was a demobilization and then a remobilization of the subcontractors, and many of the materials, which are finished materials, take six or seven months to be delivered," he said. "They cannot put a full crew on it until the material is on hand so they have been working with the material that they have."
Most of these "finished materials" on order will be used to complete the building's atrium, which currently requires the most work. Blaik estimated that the rest of the building is about 85 percent complete, but the atrium is only about 60 percent finished.
Currently, there are about 70 laborers working on the Schattner building, and they are spending at the pace of about $750,000 per month.
