What you missed at the Board of Trustees' meeting: Facilities and Real Estate edition

As part of the scheduled meeting of the Board of Trustees last week, the Trustees Facilities and Campus Planning Committee discussed Penn's newest investment projects, one of which is valued at more than $1 billion. 

Here's what you need to know:

The $1.5 billion Penn Medicine Pavilion will make up for a shortage of beds at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. 

The Pavilion being constructed across the street from HUP — Penn's largest capital project in its history — will expand the amount of space for inpatient care in Penn Medicine's complex of hospitals. 

Ralph Muller, the CEO of Penn Medicine, said the additions were necessary, largely because HUP does not have enough beds. Muller reported that “several days each week,” HUP had to turn away patients because there just wasn’t sufficient space.

Penn President Amy Gutmann said she was enthusiastic about the Pavilion, and thought it marked a milestone in the history of Penn Medicine.

“This is by far the largest project we’ve ever done, and by far the most intensive care project we’ve ever done,” Gutmann said. “We want [Penn’s hospital facilities] to be the best and we want everybody to compare themselves to us.”

Gutmann said that the growth Muller spoke about was part of a national trend towards consolidated and more efficient care.

Muller summarized a number of other Penn Medicine projects that were completed over the last year. He spoke to the committee about the $90 million expansion project for Chester County Hospital, which Penn Medicine acquired in 2013; the acquisition of the Princeton HealthCare System; and the opening of a new Penn Medicine location in Cherry Hill, N.J. 

Wharton is adding another building — it'll be across from the Quad at 37th and Spruce streets. 

Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett said the new building will address scheduling and space conflicts that often arise in Wharton facilities.

“The amount of my time and senior administrators’ time in the school on finding space and on room allocation is incredible. I mean it’s ‘can we find a hundred square feet here, a hundred square feet there?’” Garrett said. “So desperately seeking space I think is a fair way to explain the state of the school.”

Garrett diagramed how the four-story Wharton Academic Research Building, as it will be called, will be organized. While some of the rooms are to resemble traditional lecture halls, others will facilitate the Structured, Active, In-Class Learning (or SAIL), where students use class time to collaborate and solve problems.

 “The lower-half is for students and academic programs,” Garrett said. “There, what we’re really talking about is another incremental step towards, what I would call a rebalancing of what I would call learning by studying and learning by doing.”

The center’s top two floors will be reserved for research areas, academic offices and administrative spaces. Garrett says that this organization will promote “synergy,” between Wharton’s ever-growing and diversifying faculty.

The Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics is on track for completion by spring of 2018. 

The $75 million center, which will be located above the complex at 36th and Walnut streets that formerly contained Ann Taylor Loft, is the new planned headquarters for the Economics and Political Science departments. 

The planned $7.5 million facelift for the headquarters of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, is scheduled to be done in the fall, administrators said. 

Larry Robbins, a 1992 Wharton and Engineering graduate and alumnus of the M&T program, provided the gift for the renovation. The building will be renamed after him. 

Other renovation projects discussed at the meeting included additions to the School of Dental Medicine's Schattner Building; the Cox & Harrison Wing of the Penn Museum; work on the heating, ventilation and air conditioning throughout Van Pelt Library and the $80 million makeover that went into Hill College House, which will reopen in the fall with air conditioning.

Correction: A previous version of this article implied that multiple projects discussed at this meeting were valued at over $1 billion. Only one project is. Additionally, the first name of the donor for the renovation of M&T headquarters was misidentified and the location of the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics was incorrectly given. The Daily Pennsylvanian regrets the errors.