Summer renovations change the face of Penn's campus

This facelift will not go unnoticed. With numerous recently completed construction projects and new facades dotting the streets around Penn, the campus looks a whole lot different than it did when students left it in May. The new Penn Bookstore and Xando coffee house bar in Sansom Common, the renovated Van Pelt Library and the new fitness center in Gimbel Gymnasium may all be celebrating their official openings next week, but their doors have already opened to the campus community. And these new arrivals are definitely being felt. Psychology Professor John Sabini, a 22-year University veteran, said the changes made to Penn's physical campus this summer have been "much more dramatic" than any he's seen in his time here. "It's in a more visible location," Sabini noted, explaining that many of the renovated sites -- which are concentrated along Walnut Street -- fall into the daily path of most undergraduates, particularly College students. For example, Sabini said, construction near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania "doesn't affect or impact those of us who are in the arts and sciences quadrant." A large, red-and-blue neon marquee marks one of the boldest additions to Walnut Street -- the new Penn Bookstore at the corner of 36th and Walnut streets. With more than 50,000 square feet, the new Barnes & Noble-operated Bookstore is 60 percent larger and offers more products and services than did the old bookstore at the corner of 38th Street and Locust Walk. The store opened its doors on July 15, but its official opening ceremony will be next Thursday. With enough soft background music and shiny decor to give it class and enough magnitude to overwhelm newcomers, the store found many returning students looking quite lost this week. "[This store is] a little more confusing since it's the first day coming back to this, but it's definitely a lot better," said College sophomore Nisha Ninan, who was having considerable difficulty finding a chemistry textbook. As University administrators intended, the new store is also becoming a destination for some of the University's outside neighbors. Colleen Scheibl and her friends, all students at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia (formerly the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science), were browsing through the store this week for art supplies -- which they said their own school's bookstore doesn't stock. The bookstore was the first retailer to open in the $80 million Sansom Common hotel and retail complex. Xando, the late-night coffee bar, opened its doors on August 27. Two more stores -- Urban Outfitters and Parfumerie Douglas Cosmetics -- are expected to open this month, and the approximately 250-room Inn at Penn is set to begin business in the fall of 1999. Another store, City Sports, canceled plans to open in the retail complex, according to the store's management. Further down Walnut Street, a major phase in the multi-phase rehabilitation of Van Pelt Library was finished this summer. The library's first floor is hardly recognizable now with its new main entrance, circulation center and central staircase. An information desk -- a new addition to the facility -- sits right near the entrance. "I think it's welcoming to a patron who's never been here before," said Lynn Ruthrauff, an assistant for circulation services. "[The renovated library] is much better," Ruthrauff added. "The building had seen its day. It was worn out in every way." Over at Gimbel, where work on a new high-tech fitness center has been going on all summer, construction crews are ready for next Tuesday's official opening of the facility. Parts of the first two floors of Gimbel have been transformed into a recreational facility complete with new weight and aerobic equipment, video and audio systems and full air-conditioning. The project cost $1.2 million. Meanwhile this summer, construction advanced further on the Annenberg School for Communication renovations and on the construction of the Perelman Quadrangle. Building crews have been working on the Annenberg School since October to renovate the older section of the building and replace the Annenberg School Theater with a teleconferencing center linked to the Annenberg Public Policy Center in Washington. Part of the two-year, $15 million renovation project will involve making the school's entrance on Walnut Street more visible. The $69 million Perelman Quad project -- designed to create a student center linking Irvine Auditorium with Logan, Houston, Williams and College halls -- saw the completion of Logan Hall this summer. This second-oldest edifice on campus underwent more than seven years of renovations. Construction of the ground-floor art gallery and terrace room was finally completed over the past few months. The building's seminar rooms, classrooms and 277-seat auditorium were finished last winter. For the next week, or maybe even longer, it will be commonplace to find returning students staring wide-eyed -- excited or perhaps even a little startled -- at the new face of what they once thought was familiar turf. If renovations continue at this pace, when the class of 1999 swings back to Penn for its five-year reunion, the place might not be recognizable at all.

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