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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Board of Trustees approve building renovations

The IU Board of Trustees unanimously approved four new renovations for the IU-Bloomington campus.

The board met Friday at IU-Bloomington for the Facilities and Auxiliaries Committee and the Finance, Audit and Strategic Planning Committee.

The trustees voted to approve three new projects: a new School of Informatics and Computing building, Indiana Memorial Union Biddle Hotel room renovations and Memorial Hall and Goodbody Hall renovations.

The new 125,000-square-foot School of Informatics and Computing building will encompass faculty offices, meeting spaces, work rooms, classrooms, a large lecture hall and an innovation center, according the agenda.

Anticipated to cost $39,800,000, the project is expected to be complete by December 2017.

“The School of Informatics and Computing is one of, if not the, fastest growing academic departments in Indiana University,” said Tom Morrison, IU vice president of Capital Planning and Facilities. “And it’s not uncommon in our world for deans to be looking for new space and looking for additional space. It’s not always justified. In this case, it’s ?justified.”

The electrical, lighting, plumbing, mechanical and telecommunications infrastructure of 189 guest rooms in the IMU Biddle Hotel will be upgraded.

New furnishings will also be installed, and a portion of the roof will be replaced.

“For many years we’ve known that we’ve needed to renovate the guest rooms of the Biddle Hotel, and we are finally at the point of doing that,” Morrison said. “Because many guests have said to us, while they love the location and they love the ambiance, the hotel was getting tired, one, in terms of its appearance and its functionality, but also in terms of its efficiency and its repair.”

This project is expected to cost $8,000,000 and be complete by December 2017.

Both Memorial and Goodbody Hall will be reverted from academic spaces back to their original purpose as student housing, creating 182 new beds.

Morrison Hall will also gain a 200-seat dining hall.

“Whenever we talk about this plan, there are alums of a certain age who just feel wonderful about this conversion taking effect in housing because they remember how special it was as housing,” Morrison said.

The project, expected to be complete by 2018, is projected to cost $30,000,000.

The trustees also voted to approve one new design: the School of Public and Environmental Affairs ?renovations.

The School of Public and Environmental Affairs will receive a three-story, 34,000-square-foot addition, putting the southern edge of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs roughly even with the southern edge of the new Hodge Hall, according to ?the agenda.

The first floor will include a 2,300-square-foot student commons; the second floor will comprise undergraduate learning spaces, including classrooms and team study rooms; and the third floor will comprise graduate learning spaces, including classrooms and team seminar rooms.

The project is expected be complete by August 2016.

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