FOR RELEASE: Immediate, Monday, August 27, 2001
Baruch College's "Vertical Campus" Opens
DASNY-built structure takes up nearly one city block
Baruch College's new Academic Complex, a $319.4 million project financed and built by the Dormitory Authority, opened for class today for 12,000 undergraduates in New York City.
The building is massive on nearly every scale imaginable. It's 14 curving stories above street level, with athletic and performing arts facilities extending three stories below ground. It has 785,000 gross square feet and rises 247 feet from Lexington Avenue. The exterior is brick masonry on the first six floors, and combination of profiled metal panels and glass curtain wall on the high-rise levels. Seven tons of steel are incorporated into the building. While under construction, the foundation – excavated to 16 feet below sea level – was the largest on any project in New York City at that time.
The Academic Complex creates a campus for Baruch College, which formerly had classroom, faculty and office space spread over several blocks in Manhattan. With space in New York City at a premium, the campus is vertical, not horizontal, creating in an urban setting the sense of open space and quadrangle design that typifies suburban campuses. Three stacked atriums allow sunlight to filter diagonally from the top of the building and along the southern side all the way to the ground floor lobby and exterior plazas on the north side. Each floor has a mix of classrooms, research spaces and offices around the open atrium, with many open spaces and cul-de-sacs furnished with chairs and tables for conversation, reading, and “hanging out” between classes.
Students and faculty can move easily throughout the building between classes through six large-cab elevators, each holding 45 people and opening on both sides, plus escalators and smaller elevators.
For the first time, all faculty and staff offices and most classroom space for Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business and the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences will be in one building. The new building allows the City University of New York to save about $19 million annually in payments for leased space.
Kohn Pederson Fox and Associates designed the building, with TDX Corporation as the construction manager. Nicholas D'Ambrosio and Mary Anderson of the Dormitory Authority were the project managers. Construction began in 1997.
Dormitory Authority Chair Gail H. Gordon said, “We are very pleased to offer CUNY students this building, with more than 140 ‘smart' classrooms, research labs and computer labs to bring the latest technology into the campus environment. This demonstrates Governor Pataki's commitment to high-quality facilities for our public colleges.”
DASNY Executive Director Thomas J. Murphy said, “This completes three major projects by the Dormitory Authority for Baruch College. The Information and Technology Building, which includes the Newman Library, was completed in 1994. Our renovation of the School of Public Affairs was completed during 2000. Now, the Academic Complex unifies the Baruch campus to provide students with the finest facilities for their educational experience.”
Baruch College President Ned Regan said the vertical campus “represents the heroic commitment of individuals at Baruch, at CUNY, and in state government, from the Dormitory Authority up to the Governor's office. Baruch is particularly grateful to Governor Pataki and to the New York State Legislature for providing the will and the means to make this building happen.”
The Academic Complex includes a food court; bookstore; conference center; two auditoriums; a recital hall; theatre and theatre studios; fine arts facilities including a graphic arts lab, photo labs, music studios, rehearsal spaces and recording studios; recreation and fitness centers; a gymnasium; racquetball courts; pool and locker rooms.
For more information, contact Press Officer Claudia Hutton at (518) 257 3382, or CHutton@dasny.org.
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