Penn State’s Board of Trustees on Friday approved a $19.4 million infrastructure modernization project for a 71-year-old administrative and classroom building on the core University Park campus.
The systems renewal project for Boucke Building on Pollock Road will focus on HVAC improvements and window replacements, as well as some fire alarm and plumbing upgrades, Mark Miller, associate vice president and chief facilities officer, told the board’s Finance and Investment Committee on Thursday.
“Boucke continues to serve an important academic and administrative role along one of our major corridors on campus,” Miller said. “However, Boucke was built in 1955, and with that, a number of the systems have reached the end of their useful life or are well beyond that. So this project is not a complete renewal or programmatic change. Instead it’s a targeted investment of the core building infrastructure.”
The building is home to Student Affairs, Global Programs and Educational Equity, along with 18 heavily-used general purpose classrooms. It is currently graded by a university facilities needs index as being in below-average condition with major renovations needed.
The project, which will eliminate about $7.7 million in deferred maintenance, aims to improve the reliability of the facility and occupant comfort, and extend the useful life of the building, Miller said.
HVAC work will include replacement of outdated mechanical systems, introduction of centralized conditioning and automated controls, and elimination of inefficient window units.
“At the same time, we’re going to be replacing the 1955 original single-pane steel windows to improve the thermal performance of the facility,” Miller said. “And we’ll also reduce some envelope related issues that we have with moisture infiltration.”
Upon completion, Miller said, the project will “improve the daily experience for the occupants,” and reduce energy consumption, with an average annual savings of about $180,000.
“Also, from an operations standpoint, these upgrades will really help us move away from reactive maintenance and into more of a planned and predictive maintenance on campus, which allows a lot of benefits on our side on the operations side of the house, too,” Miller said. “So that really helps us reduce work orders. It helps us improve the reliability and also the long term stabilization of our operating costs of the facility.”
While not the primary focus of the project, the window replacement will result in an aesthetic improvement as well, he added.
Construction is scheduled to begin in May and be completed in August 2027.
Boucke will remain occupied during the project, Miller said, and much of the construction will take place during the summer.
He also noted that the Boucke work will have an approximately seven-month overlap with the neighboring Osmond Lab’s renovation and addition, which is slated for completion in November.
“We’ll have to mitigate both the adjacency in the space and the laydown space that we have, as well as the logistics and the traffic flow along Pollock Road,” Miller said. “So our teams and the design-build contractor will be working closely to coordinate that.”
Funding sources for the project include $15.64 million in borrowing, $2.76 million from reserves and $1 million from energy savings, according to Miller’s presentation.
It is one of two major construction projects at University Park to receive approval from the full Board of Trustees on Friday. The board also authorized the $79.8 million second phase of renovations to Pollock Halls, which includes an overhaul of Hiester and Shulze halls to begin in May and be completed in July 2027.
