8:16 a.m., Dec. 17, 2010----A new leadership team at University of Delaware Facilities has emerged to manage several major construction projects, including the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory, the new University Bookstore, and the Science and Technology Campus on the former Chrysler assembly plant site.

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Significant projects also include new East Campus residence hall and dining hall construction, as well as additions to the Bob Carpenter Center.

Joining David Singleton, vice president for facilities and auxiliary services, as part of the team are Peter Krawchyk, director of facilities planning and construction; Andrew Lubin, director of real estate; and Alan Brangman, University architect and campus planner.

Besides managing the transition of the former assembly plant site to become UD's Science and Technology Campus, the team also will oversee the design, planning and construction of more than $575 million in other new projects in support of the University's Path to Prominence^TM strategic plan agenda.

“Design work on the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering building that will be located at the corner of Academy Street and Lovett Avenue is essentially completed,” Singleton said. “The 200,000-square-foot facility was designed by Ayers Saint Gross, and will include modern undergraduate science teaching labs, classrooms and state-of the-art interdisciplinary research laboratories associated with research institutes, including those focused on energy and the environment.”

Other notable projects include:

A 29,000-square-foot addition to the Bob Carpenter Center, which will include practice courts for men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball, as well as general student use. Designed by HNTB of Kansas City, Mo., the facility will house varsity locker rooms and coaching staff offices.

The new UD Bookstore, in partnership with Barnes and Noble, located on East Main Street just west of the intersection with Academy Street. DIGSAU is the architect and Buccini Pollin is the design-build contractor for the 60,000-square-foot structure, which also will be home to the Office of University Development and Alumni Relations.

An East Campus residential project, with five new buildings that will house about 1,400 students. Complementing the residence halls will be a new dining hall and the renovation of the current recreational field in the Harrington Beach area.

“Rodney and Dickinson complexes will be phased out, and Harrington complex will be renovated,” Singleton said. “There will not be any more total beds on campus when the projects are completed. This is the culmination of a long-standing plan to modernize housing facilities that also included the Independence complex on Laird Campus.”

Facilities leadership team

Planning and coordinating approved projects, including the expansion of facilities at the Carpenter Sports Building, means working with design consultants and managing a 20-plus person staff that includes project managers, designers and a campus landscape engineer, Krawchyk, said.

“The volleyball program will move down from the Carpenter Sports Building (Little Bob),” Krawchyk said. “It is a fast-track project that we expect to complete by the fall of 2011, and it is part of President Patrick Harker's goal of providing more student recreational facilities.”

Krawchyk brings with him a decade of campus planning, construction and management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and more recently with Ayers Saint Gross, of Baltimore.

Lubin, whose primarily responsibility will be the marketing and development of the Science and Technology Campus, previously owned and operated a commercial real estate company and was a consultant to several Delaware state agencies.

“We will work with the colleges to determine their space criteria and needs relating to the main campus and the Science and Technology Campus,” Lubin said. “We will meet with deans and others to develop this site as a partnership. We also will take advantage of the experience of for-profit firms in building the new Science and Technology Campus.”

Brangman previously served as university architect for Georgetown University, and as director of design arts for the National Endowment for the Arts, both located in Washington, D.C.

“As UD architect and campus planner, I am responsible for the overall image of the campus, including new buildings and landscape and streetscape elements,” Brangman said. “I look at the buildings at UD and see all of the campus as part of a continuum which includes the planned lifetime use of a building.”

Brangman also will be working with Lubin and Krawchyk in various aspects of the development of the Science and Technology Campus.

“Because we need to have an understanding of what is going on as a building moves from design to construction, we are constantly working with each other,” Krawchyk said. “I am pleased at how friendly and warm the people are at UD There really is a family spirit at the campus.”

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Kathy Atkinson