When UConn begins construction as early as next June on its new downtown Hartford campus, perhaps the biggest challenge will be preserving the historical feel of the old Hartford Times building. Considered an architectural gem, it's the site where UConn has chosen to relocate its West Hartford campus, with the goal of creating a collegiate environment that also has easy access to the Capital City's businesses and cultural institutions. Leading the effort is Laura Cruickshank, UConn's master planner and chief university architect, who joined the school last year from Yale University where she was the chief university planner. The Hartford Times building on Prospect Street was designed in 1920 by New York City architect Donn Barber, who also designed Hartford's Travelers Tower, the Connecticut State Library and the Connecticut Supreme Court; the Times building's six granite columns were rescued from the demolished Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York City. New York's Robert A.M. Stern Architects is being paid $7.8 million to design UConn's main campus building and will go to great lengths to preserve key elements of the Hartford Times building, Cruickshank said. The goal is for the campus to form a figurative gateway linking the school and the larger city; it will have an anchor courtyard with a vista of Hartford's public library. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
UCONN Health Tops Off $318M Hospital Tower
UConn Health Center and state officials held a topping-off ceremony Monday to mark the near completion of the medical center's new 11-floor hospital tower.
The ceremony commemorated the hospital tower's final steel beam being put in place. Construction will continue into 2015, with full occupancy scheduled in the early part of 2016.
The tower is one of the major projects of Bioscience Connecticut, which is a nearly $1 billion package of state investments that aim to invigorate UConn Health's Farmington campus and make it a major draw for the bioscience industry. The initiative also includes building a new outpatient pavilion and adding incubator and lab space.
The $318 million hospital tower includes 11 floors and will house key patient areas including the emergency department, surgery suite, MRI suite, renal dialysis, respiratory therapy, inpatient rehab (orthopaedics, rehab gym and workspace), clinical support, and patient education space. Support services located in the new tower will include central sterile processing and a new main lobby.
ARTBA: New banking rules will exacerbate HTF problems
The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) says new federal banking rules announced August 3 “will further impede state transportation planning and investments across the nation.” Rules just approved by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will preclude banks from using municipal bonds to comply with new liquidity standards. “This decision will increase the financing cost of infrastructure projects for state and local governments by imposing a constraint on the market for municipal bonds,” ARTBA President & CEO Pete Ruane says. “That could also adversely impact development of public-private partnerships for transportation projects.” In a letter to the Congressional leadership, Ruane urged they use the new banking rules “as another motivator to do what the vast majority of your colleagues have acknowledged needs to be done—develop a long-term, sustainable revenue solution to permanently stabilize the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and support future state investments in transportation improvements.” Ruane noted the temporary revenue patch for HTF-funded programs approved by Congress in July means the fund now faces another revenue shortfall “at the beginning of the 2015 construction season.” Action on a long-term HTF revenue solution, Ruane wrote, “does not need to wait until May 2015.”
UCONN Tower construction moving along
FARMINGTON — Topping off the last of the steel beams Monday for what will be the new hospital tower at UConn Health is, according to Health Center officials, big. How big? “Huge,” said Tom Trotter, associate vice president of facilities and operations at the Health Center. “This is another major milestone in the Bioscience Connecticut construction on the Farmington campus. It will lead to bigger and better things in Connecticut.” Trotter said once the buildings are completed Jackson Labs will open in October followed by a new outpatient pavilion in January. The promise of Bioscience Connecticut paved the way for the state’s engagement with The Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, which is building a research facility on the UConn Health campus focused on advances in genomic medicine. “The programs these buildings will support are key economic drivers,” Trotter said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE