Three of GW’s academic buildings devoted to science and engineering will see $13.2 million worth of upgrades over the next several years, the University announced Friday.
The Board of Trustees approved the funding total for Corcoran, Bell and Tompkins halls at its meeting Friday.
Corcoran Hall will see upgrades over the next year, with funds carved out of a $3.2 million slice of the total budget. The University will also conduct a study over the next year to determine how to best use spaces that will free up across the three buildings when more than 100 professors move into the Science and Engineering Hall in 2015.
The projects are expected to cost about $3 million annually over the next three to five years, according to the board’s budget overview, and the spaces will be used by faculty from both the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Provost Steven Lerman said Friday that the University has not yet decided what specific areas of the buildings will be overhauled, or when these renovations will take place.
The University allocated lab space in the new $275-million building in April, giving 63 percent to the engineering school and the rest to researchers in the Columbian College.
Because the Science and Engineering Hall does not have lecture-style classrooms, Senior Associate Vice President of Operations Alicia Knight said earlier this year that Tompkins, Corcoran and Bell would likely retain classroom space for science and engineering students.
David Dolling, dean of SEAS, said last week the school hoped to have every laboratory moved into the Science and Engineering Hall, but acknowledged some may be left behind on the top floor of Tompkins.
“I would suspect we’ll renovate at least one floor of Tompkins and improve it,” Dolling said before the budget was announced.
Dolling said the space in the rest of the building could be assigned to another school at GW, adding, “Every dean says their stuff is the top priority, so the provost has to decide the top of the tops.”
Dean of the GW Law School Paul Schiff Berman said while the school has been looking to expand and would like the University to allocate the school either renovated “existing space like Bell or new space,” it would all depend on the provost’s decision and the law school ability to raise funding.
Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.
