Wearing construction hats and wielding shovels, University President Judith Rodin, Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt and others kicked off construction of Penn Bioengineering's new home on Friday.
In celebration of the construction plans for Skirkanich Hall, approximately 150 Engineering students, overseers, faculty and staff gathered for lunch, remarks and a formal ceremonial groundbreaking. Actual construction of the $38 million building will begin in March.
"This is a day we have been dreaming about for years," Glandt said, adding that the building will become a "destination" on campus, highlighting the school and one of its star departments.
When it is completed in early 2006, Skirkanich Hall will house the Bioengineering Department, along with an auditorium, two undergraduate wet laboratories and additional Bioengineering research space.
Located between the Moore and Towne buildings on the former space of the Pender Laboratories, the new 33rd Street structure will connect all of the Engineering school's buildings, completing its Quadrangle and enclosing its courtyard.
Bioengineering Department Chair Daniel Hammer said that the building will provide space that the department, currently housed in Hayden Hall, has needed for years.
"Bioengineering has always been short of space in the Engineering School because most of the buildings here are old," he said. "Wet lab bioengineering research requires sinks and fumehoods, so we've always been short that kind of space. There was a clear need for research space dedicated to that."
According to Ira Winston, director of Facilities Planning for the School of Engineering, the building will have three floors of research space in addition to two undergraduate labs.
But Glandt stressed that the building will serve more than a programmatic purpose.
"It will give us a main entrance to the complex on 33rd Street, just as the campus is preparing to move to the east," he said, adding that the building's architecture, planned by the award-winning designers of New York City's Museum of Folk Art, will make this entrance an especially attractive one.
In addition to hailing the building and its many uses, Glandt, Rodin and the other speakers at Friday's groundbreaking stressed the generosity of those who have provided funding for the building.
Peter and Geri Skirkanich donated a $10 million enabling gift for the construction of the building -- Peter Skirkanich, a Wharton alumnus, is an overseer of the Engineering School and a University trustee.
The Whitaker Foundation provided $14 million as part of the Engineering School's Leadership Development Award grant.
The National Institutes of Health also gave $4 million towards the building as an infrastructure grant, Hammer said.
Engineering is in the process of soliciting the remaining funds, according to Winston and Glandt.
Students said that along with providing learning space, the building will boost the morale of bioengineers.
"It will bring the bioengineers to the core of the school," said Engineering senior Jason Bethala, president of the Engineering Deans' Advisory Board.
Ashley Siems, president of Penn's Society of Bioengineers and the Engineering Student Activities Council, agreed with Bethala.
"It means that Bioengineering is making great strides to improve its program to be even greater than it is now," the Engineering junior said. "I think the hall is going to be a symbol of the spirit of the faculty and students."
