Heard Around Campus: November 2015

It’s been a full month. We dealt with a citywide security scare aimed at local universities, elected a new mayor, honored our nation’s heroes in the city’s first annual Veterans Day parade and enjoyed an unseasonably warm Halloween.

Here’s what you may have missed around campus.

Seeking Students for the Dragon ‘24

As part of his efforts to gain insight into ways to improve the academic experience, Provost M. Brian Blake issued an invitation to students to apply to join a new circle of young advisers who will meet quarterly with the Office of the Provost. Students will be involved in meetings with administrators as well as alumni, business leaders and future students and serve as ambassadors and hosts for Drexel functions.

Called the Dragon ’24, the group will consist of 24 student leaders — they must be full-time students who will graduate after spring 2017 and represent the best and brightest from a range of programs, backgrounds and cultures.

To apply, students should submit an “original and provocative” video that either discusses a vision for Drexel or highlights a current unique strength of the institution. Deadline for submissions is Dec. 10, with selections announced by Jan. 4.

New Shops at the Summit and Chestnut Square

At Chestnut Square, Supercuts has moved in and Hand & Stone Spa is scheduled to open above Zavino’s in early 2016, making the site fully leased up.

At the Summit, Starbucks is putting on the finishing touches and plans to open by the end of the year, and construction will soon begin on an Old Nelson deli and a Ramen Bar restaurant, both of which are expected to open in spring 2016. American Campus Communities is currently in lease negotiations with five additional retail tenants for the Summit at University City.

Grand Opening of the Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Service Center

On Nov. 11, the center celebrated the completion of its new, two-story, 17,000-square-foot addition — made possible by a $2.5 million gift from Stephen and Sandra Sheller’s family foundation.

The community-based, nurse-managed health center is nationally recognized as a model health care home that integrates mind and body and uses a trauma-informed approach to serve the residents of North Philadelphia.

The expanded health center building at 850 N. 11th St., which includes a new wing and a connector passageway between the two structures, is now approximately 34,000 square feet, nearly double the size of the former space.

Future Childcare/Mixed-Use Site Operator and Developer Selected

The University signed an agreement to enter into a ground lease with Radnor Property Group for the development of a mixed-use childcare and market-rate housing development at 3201 Race St.

Nobel Learning Communities will be the operator of the 180-person childcare facility. The childcare/market-rate apartment portion of the project will be 176,000 square feet, and the owner-occupied townhome component of the project will be 13,200 square feet (12 units).

Construction/Renovation Updates

• Bossone Research Enterprise Center Renovations — Now that construction of the first-floor expansion is complete, design is underway and contract documents are being prepared to repurpose the sixth floor for biomedical engineering and environmental sciences faculty. On the fifth floor, chemical fume hoods are being added.
  
  
• 3101 Market St. — 3101 Market St. is being renovated for the relocation of engineering laboratories and expansion of the College of Engineering’s research capacities. The Innovation Studio, comprising the Machine Shop (relocated from Hess Laboratories), the freshman laboratories and multidisciplinary maker space, is complete and in service. Meanwhile, designs have been completed for offices for the A.J. Drexel Institute for Energy and the Environment, a social sciences lab and a geographic information systems lab. The final component of this project will be relocating electrical and computer engineering laboratories from the third floor of Bossone Research Enterprise Center.
  
  
• Renovation to the Center for Automation Technology (CAT)/LeBow Engineering Center and Paul Peck Problem Solving and Research Building (PPSRB) — Six new classrooms and instructional laboratories were built on the second floor of PPSRB and placed in service in September 2015. The new classrooms freed space in CAT/LeBow for the construction of wet research laboratories for the Department of Chemistry, as well as the environmental engineering component of the Institute for Energy and the Environment. Infrastructure improvements needed to support the new laboratories are in progress. Meanwhile, new leased space on the third and fourth floors of University Crossings is complete and occupied by graduate student offices relocated from PPSRB.
  
  
• 3401 Market Lease (DragonsTeach, CASTL and College of Arts and Sciences) – Drexel has entered into a new lease at 3401 Market for approximately 7,400 rentable square feet to house two grant-funded initiatives, DragonsTeach and the Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTL), as well as space for components of the criminology and justice studies programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. The space is expected to be occupied in mid-December.
  
  
• Pearlstein Business Learning Center Renovation — Demolition continues to ready the space for renovations on the fourth floor to allow the Close School of Entrepreneurship to expand. Substantial completion and beneficial occupancy are expected in March 2016.
  
  
• The Study at University City Hotel — Construction continues at 33rd and Chestnut streets for Hospitality 3’s 212-room boutique hotel. The hotel is on schedule to open in fall 2016.
  
  
• University City High School Site — Demolition is now complete.

For a full list of University construction and renovation projects, check here.