So now what are they doing to Yost?
https://www.michigandaily.com/news/regents-approve-design-49-million-dennison-renovation
Regents to approve design for $49 million Dennison renovation
By CLAIRE BRYAN, Daily Staff Reporter
Published November 17, 2014
At Thursday’s meeting of the University’s Board of Regents, the governing body will vote to approve schematic designs for a $49 million renovation of the David M. Dennison Building.
The regents will also consider several other capital projects, including designs for the new Biological Science Building, renovations for the second floor of Lorch Hall and
improvements to Yost Ice Arena.
In July 2014, the board approved the Dennison project and the hiring of Diamond Schmitt Architects to design the project. Thursday’s vote of approval will put the project into action.
If approved, LSA will relocate the International Institute and associated centers for international studies from the School of Social Work to the Dennison Building after the renovation is completed.
Approximately 106,000 gross square feet that have been vacated by the relocation of the Department of Astronomy from Dennison to West Hall will be renovated. Classrooms will be repurposed to create spaces for faculty work as well as graduate and undergraduate student collaboration.
The renovation is also expected to add 1,500 gross square feet of space to the building by enclosing an overhang area on the first floor and extending windows outward on the 10th floor. This will create a 10-story high-rise section of the building.
The estimated $49 million project will be funded entirely by LSA resources and investment proceeds. Scheduled construction will be completed in the summer of 2017.
Approved last winter, the new Biological Science Building will be built adjacent to the Life Sciences Institute on the site of the historic North Hall and the Museums Annex, both of which will be demolished.
The building is expected to cost $261 million, funded by LSA and Office of the Provost resources. From that total, $9 million is earmarked for the demolition of North Hall and the Museums Annex.
Currently, the Kraus Natural Science Building, built in 1915, houses the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. This building has reached its capacity for the current number of researchers it can support and is limited in its ability to allow contemporary research, according to the project proposal. The two departments will eventually relocate to the new building.
The Ruthven Museums Building houses an additional part of EEB and the Anthropology, Natural History, Paleontology and Zoology museums. These museums, along with a portion of Herbarium specimens and dry collections, will transfer to the new building.
The facility will include new research laboratories, active learning classrooms with group tables instead of auditorium-esque seating, offices and the four museum collections. The laboratories will be constructed in an open plan to allow for increased collaboration.
The project will also build a connector from the new building to the Life Sciences Institute.
Both the EEB and MCDB are slated to complete their relocation to the new facility by 2019.
