With the summer in full swing, many of Penn's improvement projects planned for the coming months are also moving into full gear.
However, there is one such project that has been stalled.
The demolition of the former Hillel building, located next to the ARCH building at 36th Street and Locust Walk has been pushed back yet again. The new Annenberg Public Policy Center is slated to be built on that land.
According to Penn Facilities spokesman Tony Sorrentino, the former Hillel building "is going under demolition soon after the Fourth of July holiday."
Originally scheduled to take place in March, Penn facilities officials pushed back the date until mid-May in order to minimize the impact on students during the school year, as reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian in March.
Shortly before the spring semester ended, though, University officials announced another demolition start time - this one in mid-June.
But with the days dwindling in the sixth month, officials were still settling the finances involved with the project.
"The estimates came back slightly higher than was budgeted," Sorrentino said. "So we took some extra time to evaluate why the costs may be higher than budgeted and resolve the issue through more research and negotiation and financial analysis."
With these issues close to being worked out, the demolition should be completed before the academic year begins.
Then construction will begin in the fall on the new Public Policy Center, which was originally planned to be finished in May 2009.
Sorrentino is not sure whether the demolition delay will push back the date the new Annenberg building will be completed. He said that time could possibly be made up during the construction process.
"Typically it's 18 to 24 months for a project like that," Sorrentino said.
Construction has already begun on another building around the corner. The new student living space on Walnut Street between 39th and 40th streets, which will be called the Radian, is scheduled to open in August 2008. The $50 million building will include over 150 apartments on 14 stories.
With construction under way, University Partners, the group in charge of the project, will host an official ground-breaking event on July 18.
In other construction and renovation updates, Sorrentino said that, to his knowledge, all of the projects are going as planned.
Some of these include the second phase of the high-rise renovations, in which workers are modernizing bathrooms and kitchens in Harrison and Harnwell college houses.
