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<p>[Penn:</a> Office of University Communications: University of Pennsylvania Selects Patkau Architects to Design New Student Residence on Hill Square](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1370]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1370)</p>
<p>It’s about time! Any word on the target opening dates?</p>
<p>Not that I’ve seen. But it looks like they’re planning to spend about $100 million on it:</p>
<p>[PennConnects</a> : <em></em>Hill Square Overview](<a href=“Penn Connects : A Vision for the Future.”>Penn Connects : A Vision for the Future.)</p>
<p>Groovy. This will help move the campus center of gravity eastward. It will also allow for more students to live on-campus, which means fewer students living off-campus, which means more off-campus rentals converted for long-term residential purposes, which means more gentrification, which means more bagels, which means yay.</p>
<p>I don’t know. The buildings look very boxy. Kind of like a lowrise version of the highrises. Plus, it’s a ways off, if it’s close to 30th Street Station. Any idea what kind of themed living is planned – all they say is “shared intellecual interests” or something to that effect?</p>
<p>^ This is in the most preliminary of stages. They JUST hired an architect, and the renderings on the web site are simply very rough, very general depictions of the general size and locations of the buildings, which were prepared by the general “Penn Connects” PLANNING consultants, NOT the actual building architects. So we need to wait and see what the actual architects come up with before passing judgement on the building designs.</p>
<p>Additionally, the location is not literally “close to 30th Street Station.” It’s just the portion of campus that is CLOSEST to 30th Street Station. If you’re familiar with the Penn campus, the location is the field immediately behind Hill Hall, across 34th Street from the Law School. Definitely a part of the Penn campus, albeit towards the northeast corner of it. AND, it will have a great location vis-a-vis the new Penn Park and boffo athletic facilities they’ll be building on the newly acquired Postal Lands.</p>
<p>Thanks, 45 Percenter, for the clarification – that makes more sense. Now I am intrigued as to what the designs ultimately will be.</p>
<p>Me too. I have high hopes for them not sucking, if only because the University has learned its lesson after the successive debacles of Mayer, the low-rises, the high-rises–heck, pretty much everything built on Superblock…</p>
<p>^
Amen to that, ilb</p>
<p>Double Amen.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, I was around when they erected “Covenant” (AKA Dueling Tampons) on Superblock, and remember thinking at the time, “What the hell are they putting here NOW???”).</p>
<p>45%, you should have stopped it when you had the chance!</p>
<p>According to the Penn Connects master plan, they are giving the Superblock portion of Locust Walk a (SORELY-needed) renovation in 2009. Here’s to hoping some one “accidentally” collapses the dueling tampons in the process! ;)</p>
<p>What they really need is something to cut those icy wind blasts that tear through that area in the winter. Something about the positioning of the highrises make it feel like Chicago instead of Philadelphia in that corner of the campus.</p>