Summer capital projects underway across UB’s three campuses

The largest construction project in UB’s history. The creation of a 21st-century “learning landscape” in the center of the university’s academic spine. The first major renovation in the School of Dental Medicine in 30 years.

All are among $429,128,781 in critical, strategic and small-scale capital projects going on across all three UB campuses. The projects are a key part of realizing the UB 2020 vision — creating the climate for excellence, making great public spaces and better connecting UB’s campuses to each other and the community.

UB’s extensive 2016 capital projects range from the ongoing construction of a new medical school building for the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to site repairs at the Center for the Arts to pedestrian-bridge repairs and landscape improvements on the North and South campuses.

While construction and building restorations are the most visible, the entire group of projects will impact students, faculty, staff and visitors.

“This year’s capital improvement and rehabilitation projects offer a balanced response to academic, student life, public realm and infrastructure needs at UB,” says Tonga Pham, associate vice president for university facilities.

“The projects support and advance the university’s mission. Some are focused on improving the student experience in classrooms, labs and study areas. Others will improve public safety and make UB’s campuses more attractive and sustainable environmentally.”

Under construction since October 2015, the transformation of the Oscar A. Silverman Library in Capen Hall is a key component of the Heart of the Campus project, the UB 2020 initiative to enhance the student academic experience by creating a “learning landscape” in the center of the academic spine.

The redesigned library will feature expanded learning environments; rooms for individual and group study; high-tech classrooms; suites for producing, editing and viewing multimedia; a traditional “Grand Reading Room”; and a café.

When it opens in the fall, the library also will serve as a social learning space, as well as a space for individual study and reflection. The new layout will define each type of learning environment on the floor by its own finish, furniture and color palette, enabling students to easily identify the type of space they would prefer to learn in.

The new space will accommodate more than 800 persons.

Elsewhere on the North Campus, major renovations and repairs will continue at the Center for the Arts.

Despite the massive scale of the multi-year project — which has included replacement of skylights and the roof, along with concrete work — the building has remained open for business. Last year, the center attracted approximately 90,000 people to shows in the Mainstage, plus events elsewhere in the facility.

Renovations to the center, which serves as the hub for the arts at UB, are scheduled to continue into next year.

Critical capital rehabilitation projects will bring upgraded bathrooms and student laundry facilities to several North Campus buildings.

Student laundry facilities in the Spaulding Quadrangle and Governors residence halls will receive more than $2 million in high-tech upgrades. Following the success of similar work in 2015, more students now will be able to check the status of their laundry with “laundry alerts,” view wait times and reserve a machine all from their smartphones. These projects will complete the series of laundry room renovations in the Ellicott Complex.

This summer also will see the beginning of a five-year project to renovate all student bathrooms in Governors. In addition, five new gender-inclusive, single-stall bathrooms are under construction in Spaulding.

Renovations will bring bathrooms in Bell, Furnas and Jarvis halls into compliance with accessibility standards specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

President's Circle funding for small projects to improve campus aesthetics will include new planter benches on Founders Plaza, new signage at campus entry points and new bike racks for students.

Also on the North Campus, construction of a new front plaza and sidewalks will be completed at Crofts Hall in time for the start of the fall semester, together with sidewalk and pedestrian-bridge repairs across the campus.

In addition to the final phase of the Hayes Hall restoration, several new projects are underway on UB’s historic South Campus.

UB’s super-efficient, solar-powered GRoW Home, which placed second overall in the U.S. Department of Energy’s elite Solar Decathlon competition last fall, will find a new home behind Wende Hall.

Students and faculty built the 1,400-square-foot solar-powered home as finalists in the Energy Department’s competition. The GRoW Home’s reconstruction is scheduled to be completed by the start of the fall semester.

Marking the first major School of Dental Medicine renovation in 30 years, the Preclinical Simulation Laboratory will double the size of the existing Preclinical Laboratory, expand digital dental technology and facilitate the introduction of new teaching models.

The $11 million investment will make the school competitive with peers. Construction begins in July and is expected to last 18 months.

Renovation of the school’s dental clinics — Western New York’s largest oral health care center and the site of more than 55,000 patient visits per year — is in the final planning stages. With an additional $11 million investment, the clinic renovation will include new dental operatories, cabinetry and flooring to create a more contemporary and efficient dental education and patient care center.

“This historic $22 million investment in the school’s future will strengthen student and patient recruitment efforts through greatly improved teaching and patient care environments,” says Joseph Kerr, associate dean in the dental school.    

Students, faculty and staff entering and moving through the Biomedical Research Building (BRB) and the Biomedical Education Building (BEB) will find pedestrian bridges linking the BRB to Harriman Hall and the BEB to Farber Hall rebuilt in time for the beginning of the fall semester.

In Abbott Hall, work will be done to enable University Police to staff a new substation in the building.

Additionally, among many other South Campus capital improvement and renovation projects, a number of sidewalks are scheduled for repair and replacement over the next few months.

Earlier this year, the final beams were raised into place for the new home of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. In March, UB hosted a topping out ceremony during which one of the building’s very final beams — out of a total of 7,459 steel beams — was hoisted on top of the eight-story structure and put into place at Washington and High streets. The building contains a total of 7,000 tons of structural steel.

With steel construction now complete, the permanent roof, together with more than 300 windows, will be added to the building. Also starting this summer, workers will install the school’s outer envelope, including its terra cotta skin. The structure is on track for completion in fall 2017.

In other work on the Downtown Campus, renovations will take place on the first floor of UB’s Arthur O. Eve Educational Opportunity Center to create new space for a Clinical Allied Health Program. LEED gold-certified, the 68,000-square-foot EOC is equipped with classrooms, computer labs and a library.