THE Volume 94, Issue 9
Q
UADRANGLE A Student Publication of Manhattan College Since 1924
October 25, 2016
www.mcquad.org
Local Kids Come to Campus for Safe Halloween
See page 2 MC students decorated classrooms and created activities for this years’ Safe Halloween, an event that invites local children to trick-or-treat around campus. Catherine Goodyear/The Quadrangle
South Campus Residence Hall Coming Fall 2019, New STEM Building September 2020 Sean Sonnemann Editor
Redesigning South Campus In a few short years, Manhattan College’s South Campus (the area near Leo Hall and RLC) will look very different to the college community. A series of ongoing projects are well underway that have already and will continue to impact the appearance and operations of not just that area, but the entire campus. The first stage of the plan is already complete, with the new Center for Student Success opening in the renovated Thomas Hall this past September. It combines a wide range of student resources on campus including tutoring, graduate school admissions and career development. The ensuing phases of the plan will then culminate with the opening of a new 30,000 square foot STEM building addition to Leo Hall, a 300-bed apartment style residence hall on the site of the current Mahan Physical Plant Complex and a quadrangle-like south campus green space joining the two. “It’s probably a little bit of a painful process but the end result will be very, very positive,” Andrew Ryan, Vice President for
Facilities, said. “We have to go through some steps in order to get there but the end result will be very positive.” With the STEM building scheduled to open by September 2020 and the residence hall by Fall 2019, several of those steps are already in motion. “We are actually in design right now,” Ryan said. “We’re in what’s called the ‘programmatic development phase’ on it.” Last spring, Ryan worked closely with the deans of the engineering and science schools as well as their relevant department heads to complete a STEM study addressing what needs the new building had to meet. With that information and continued input from faculty members, architecture firm Mitchell Giurgola went to work designing the new building. The firm is a specialist in higher education science and research facilities. The current programmatic development involves figuring out how many benches, hoods, gas lines, electrical outlets and other resources the new laboratories will need. The design will transition into detailed design and construction drawings that are set to be finished by October 2017—just a year away. Ryan expects renderings of the STEM Building to be ready for release
with the public in the near future. A New Residence Hall and South Campus Quad Concurrently, other stages in the South Campus Master plan are also in progress in order to furnish the new residence hall and nearby green space. The residence hall is also already in the design phase, with architecture firm Cube 3 undertaking the project. Fittingly, they are known for their work on collegiate residence hall facilities. The new building will be an apartment-style facility geared towards upperclassmen and is expected to house approximately 300 beds. For comparison, apartment-style Overlook Manor currently houses between 375 and 400 students. “A couple of the goals are to decant a little out of Overlook, decant a little bit out of Horan, and to have more attractive, affordable, apartment-style housing so that we can retain more students on campus,” Ryan said. Of course, in order to construct the new residence hall, the Mahan Complex will need to be demolished. Physical Plant will be relocated to the college’s parking facility, where designs for their new space in the garage have already been complet-
ed.
A construction contract for the Physical Plant parking garage space is ready to be awarded by the college, according to Ryan. Construction for that should be completed towards the end of the first quarter of 2017. Soon after, demolition of the old Mahan building will begin with the erection of the residence hall on that site to follow. Joining the new residence hall and STEM building will be an open and inviting green space to be built on the site of the Riverdale Auto Body Shop, now owned by the college. The college also currently owns the green garage space located just behind it along Tibbet Avenue. Why a New STEM Building? The new STEM building will be fully connected to the existing structure of Leo Hall, tying-in to the current engineering building on its south side. During construction, the façade on the west side of Leo will also be removed and rebuilt to ensure a seamless look for the new, expanded facility. However, the new combined space will not just be for engineering students. The new extension will exclusively house laboratories for The School of Science’s chemContinued on page 3