Grim as the economic news has been lately, some colleges are going ahead with construction plans—which, as Scott Carlson recently reported, will let them take advantage of lower building costs. But others, including Brown and Yale Universities, are holding back.
Yale said today that it would delay construction projects that are not already under way, in addition to making additional cuts to its budget for salaries, the Yale Daily News reported. The university’s president, Richard C. Levin, wrote in an open letter that the university was taking additional money-saving measures because the worsening world economic climate meant that the downturn would last longer than the university had forecast. Even design work on future building projects will be put on hold, the newspaper said.
Brown over the weekend backed away from plans for new medical-education and brain-science facilities and said it would renovate existing buildings instead, according to The Brown Daily Herald. But the university’s board did give a thumbs-up to two projects set to get under way this summer—construction of a new creative-arts center and renovation of an existing building for use as a campus center.
The University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, will start building a $52-million, 180,000-square-foot athletics-and-recreation complex in May, the university has announced. The university had held off on the project because of worries about the economy, but it said it can now move ahead “thanks to the support of generous contributors.”
Tarrant County College, in Texas, is about to begin construction of a 115,000-square-foot building on its Southeast campus, in Arlington. The $40.9-million building will have 28 classrooms and 24 faculty offices, and it will help the campus deal with severe overcrowding, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “The Southeast campus had one of our lowest enrollment growth rates this semester,” said William W. Lace, executive assistant to the college’s chancellor. “That’s not because there’s no demand, it’s because there is no space.”
The University of Maryland at College Park will start construction this summer on its first new residence hall since 1982, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. The eight-story, 200,000-square-foot building will house 650 students and cost $80-million.
The State University of New York at Stony Book is going ahead with construction of a $30-million research building for geometry and physics, the New York Real Estate Journal reported. The 39,000-square-foot building will have faculty and staff offices and a 250-seat lecture hall, among other facilities.
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