Lewis Hall main entrance

Photo by John Livzey

Under USC’s Capital Plan Projects, in the next five to seven years a little over 1 million square feet of new space will be added to the University Park Campus. At the same time, several older spaces (325,000 square feet) are being overhauled, re-engineered and renovated. Administration officials put the price tag for this work at about $365 million. Some construction is already underway; the rest will begin once necessary funds are raised.

The Capital Plan does not reflect all current or upcoming bricks-and-mortar projects at USC, only the top priorities. On these pages is a roundup of both Capital Plan Projects and roughly $40 million in other newly erected buildings, major renovations and key construction efforts on the University Park Campus.


CONSTRUCTION


Left: Pardee Way, with Widney Alumni House at left, and Popovich and Lewis halls behind
Right: Pardee Way aerial plan
Photo by John Livzey

1. Pardee Way
COST: $2.5 million
PROJECTED COMPLETION: Spring 2000

The first change that hits the eye is the university’s new grand entrance – a dramatic, 270-foot-long brick-lined promenade whose ceremonial gates open from Exposition Boulevard. This is the front door USC always needed and never had. A grove of Japanese cherry trees leads visitors down the gracefully arched “loggias” and fountains of Pardee Way – named for USC life trustee J. Douglas Pardee. Eventually, a major public art work will be the focal point of Pardee Way’s lush landscaping.

At the end of the avenue lies Widney Alumni House, relocated here from its former site on Childs Way in 1997 to occupy a place of paramount importance: its presence is at once a nod to history and an open-armed welcome to alumni. This was the fourth move for the university’s oldest building, which originally stood just north of the current site of the Bovard Administration Building. Behind the loggias, USC’s two newest major classroom facilities, Popovich Hall and Lewis Hall, flank the entrance.


Popovich Hall stairway
Right: Popovich Hall exterior and tower
Photo by John Livzey

2. Internationally Themed Residential College *
COST: $45 million
PROJECTED COMPLETION: Fall 2001

This unique experiment in cross-cultural learning will give American and international students a chance to live together, eat together, practice another language and hear visiting experts discuss global issues.

Construction on the first phase of USC’s planned Internationally Themed Residential College starts this summer. The college will be located at the southwest corner of the University Park Campus, on the former site of buildings A and B of Parkside Apartments, which were demolished last winter. The four-story, 134,000-square-foot building will house 400 students – more than double the capacity of the Parkside buildings it replaces – in suites of five to eight students each. Additional apartments will house a faculty master, faculty fellows and staff coordinators. Three suites will be reserved for visiting dignitaries and scholars. A 380-seat dining room with full dining service will be open to the entire campus community. Also planned are a reading lounge, music practice rooms and a coffeehouse with performance space.

Eventually phase two of the residential college will replace the remaining Parkside complex with housing for another 400 students.


Science and Technology Complex model

3. Science and Technology Complex *
COST: $ 100 million
PROJECTED COMPLETION: Unknown

This 300,000-square-foot complex will consist of three buildings, all connected by an interior courtyard. The first structure, Ronald Tutor Hall, will house the School of Engineering’s undergraduate programs. Later, the USC Alfred E. Mann Institute and Biomedical Engineering Building will bring together university scientists and researchers from private industry to develop advanced medical devices. A third building facing Childs Way will serve as the headquarters of the Program in Molecular Biology and Computational Genomics of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

To be constructed in multiple phases, the Science and Technology Complex will be erected over the surface parking lot adjacent to Kaprielian Hall.


Campus Center rendering

4. Campus Center *
COST: $80 million
PROJECTED COMPLETION: Unknown

This 260,000-square-foot complex will replace the Commons and Topping Student Center as University Park’s main venue for student meetings, programming, lounges and eating space. Its designers envision a unified center linking the architecturally rich Gwynn Wilson Student Union – one of the campus’ signature buildings – with the Pertusati Bookstore. An entry courtyard will serve as a “spine” passing through the facility and connecting its different components.

To make way for the project, the Topping Center, Stonier Hall, the Vivian YWCA Building and the Financial Services Building are all slated for demolition.

5. Arts Center *
COST: $30 million
PROJECTED COMPLETION: Unknown

Little has been decided about this project, except that it is urgently needed as a venue for the university’s flourishing arts programs. Expected to seat up to 1,000 spectators, the facility will be an acoustically superior, state-of-the-art musical and theatrical performance space – four times the size and equal in sound quality to the exquisite Newman Recital Hall (formerly Hancock Auditorium), which was re-engineered and reopened in 1998. The Arts Center will also contain museum-quality exhibit space, arts-oriented classrooms and group project rooms with the goal of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration among the arts at USC.

Representatives from USC’s School of Fine Arts, Fisher Gal-lery, School of Theatre, Thornton School of Music, School of Cinema-Television and School of Architecture are beginning the planning process for this 90,000-square-foot facility, tentatively to be located at the north end of Trousdale Parkway.

6. University Events Center *
COST: $70 million
PROJECT COMPLETION: January 2002

Construction is slated to begin in the fall on this 12,000-seat pavilion on a preferred site at the southeast corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street. The versatile multipurpose facility will serve both as a sports arena hosting basketball and volleyball games, and as an events center for major university happenings – such as Commencement, popular concerts and touring theatrical engagements. Planners are exploring a flexible design that will permit the house to shrink to 5,500 seats when a smaller venue is desirable.

The new center will contain food concessions, a full-service restaurant and gift shop, plus coaches’ offices and an auxiliary gym.

7. Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall
COST: $10.6 million
COMPLETED: 1999

Lewis Hall represents another influx of classroom space on the University Park Campus. The three-story, 34,000-square-foot building is headquarters to the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, providing classrooms, faculty offices and academic support spaces.

8. Lou and Helene Galen Center and Jess T. Hill Weight Room
COST: $2.75 million
COMPLETED: 1999

A new 5,400-square-foot sports-themed restaurant now stands adjacent to Heritage Hall. With a full kitchen, the Galen Center is the training table for USC’s nearly 600 student athletes (replacing a tent that formerly served this function). The restaurant is open to the university community for lunch and special events.

Beneath the Galen Center, the 3,000-square-foot Jess T. Hill Weight Room expands the Athletic Department’s existing underground weight-training facility with more space for equipment and an indoor 30-yard running track.

9. Jane Hoffman and J. Kristoffer Popovich Hall
COST: $19 million
COMPLETED: 1999

One of two major new instructional buildings, Popovich Hall provides 55,000 square feet of new space for the graduate programs of the USC Marshall School of Business. The three-story building’s classrooms are all wired and ready for video, audio and electronic data-projection and transmission of local and distance education. Even the outdoor spaces are wired in this state-of-the-art facility. High-speed Inter-net hook-ups and electrical outlets are built into umbrella tables and fountain seating available for patrons of Popovich’s café, making this patio area very popular with the school’s laptop-toting faculty and students.

10. Loker Track Stadium
Cost: $4.2 million
Projected Completion: December 2000

This summer, the rickety bleachers surrounding Cromwell Field will come down to make way for a new track stadium. The first phase will erect the 5,000-square-foot Joe and Betty Noble Pavilion – housing coaches’ offices, meeting rooms, locker rooms and public restrooms. Above the pavilion will rise grandstands sufficient for 1,500 spectators. More seating to be added later will bring the stadium’s seating capacity to 3,000.

The facility is named for benefactor Katherine B. Loker ’40, who ran track at USC before there was a formal women’s athletics program. Besides providing locker rooms for 100 track athletes, Loker Stadium frees space in over-crowded Heritage Hall, where women’s track coaches currently sit three to an office.


Loker Track Stadium rendering
Right: North Science Hall entrance

RENOVATIONS

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