Campus Construction Update 

Shown is the installation of underslab air ducts in the ground floor of the existing/renovated portion of the Campus Center.

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 6, 2016) – Numerous changes are in store for the campus as construction is planned or ongoing in many areas, including the Campus Center West addition, which is on track to be completed in mid 2016-2017.

Associate Vice President for Finance and Business John Giarrusso recently gave several presentations on campus construction updates to the campus community.

Of $350 million in projects in progress, some $180 million is earmarked for the new Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex (E-TEC), to be built on 12 acres in the southwest corner of the Harriman Campus. When completed, the building will be 235,000-square-feet, or nearly two and a half times the size of the new Massry Center for Business. The University will break ground on the project next year.

E-TEC will house the new College of Homeland Security, Emergency Preparedness and Cybersecurity, the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, other weather researchers and private partners, the Department of Physics, and business and tech transfer operations of the University. E-TEC is expected to open in late 2020.

The project will involve an inviting and well-landscaped path with a crosswalk to that portion of the Harriman Campus, but there will be no connector for personal car traffic between the Harriman and UAlbany ring roads.

“We’ll have a shuttle and CDTA transit,” said Giarrusso. “It is a five-minute walk from the Boor Sculpture Studio to where E-TEC will be built.”

E-TEC is still in the concept design stage. “We haven’t finalized what it will look like yet, but it will have the same DNA and feel like it is part of the UAlbany campus,” said Giarrusso.

Old Health Center (Building 25)

The former Health Center (Building 25) is currently being renovated. Once completed, in summer 2017, the departments of Africana Studies and Economics will move in.

It is designed as a classrooms and departmental offices building; and the project will include upgrades to paths and road crossings so that pedestrians can have a more pleasant, accessible path between Building 25 and the Podium.

Campus Center Renovations and Expansion

Work continues on the Campus Center renovation and west addition, which is expected to be finished next fall to early winter. Once completed, there will be 16 new food vendors in the Campus Center, including a new Starbucks.

The opening of the expanded Campus Center food venues will allow the permanent closure of the Dutch Quad kitchen and dining facilities. The Campus Center’s close adjacency to Dutch Quad as well as the cost/benefit of operating redundant dining operations have driven this decision.

The Campus Center West addition will also include a 400-seat auditorium and multi-room conference spaces. A glass-enclosed stairwell will face the Science Library Courtyard.

“It’s going to be really spectacular when it’s done,” he said.

Other Renovations

Other projects in, or soon to be in construction, include replacing the heavy Podium exterior doors, ongoing upgrades of the Lecture Center Concourse, Downtown building façade and cornice restoration, Herkimer Hall renovation, Uptown and Alumni Quad stormwater upgrades, elevator replacements on the Podium and residential towers, and fire alarm upgrades on the Downtown Campus.

Projects in planning and design include: renovation of Building 27 (Business Administration) on the Podium; renovation of Dutch Quad Beverwyck and Schuyler Halls, including the soon-to-be vacated kitchen and dining facilities as the new home of student health, counseling and wellness services; renovation of all of the Lecture Center instructional spaces; renovation of bathrooms campus-wide; and renovation of the Physical Education building.

Additionally, plans continue to renovate the Schuyler Building on the Downtown Campus to be the new home of the University’s new College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

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