Chapter Eight: Facilities
Capital Improvements and General Conditions
Over the past five years considerable capital funds have been allocated for the upgrade,
rehabilitation and preservation of facilities and systems, with emphasis on the mitigation of
health and safety related deficiencies. Completed work includes a $7 million phase II and III
heating and cooling upgrade which provided a radiation system upgrade in Davis, Gillet Halls
and the old Gym Building, and three new 900 ton steam turbine centrifugal chillers and cooling
tower in the central cooling plant. A $1.8 million project provided another generator which will
provide emergency power to those buildings without a source or currently using battery back-up.
In addition to egress lighting, critical and life safety systems will be tied into the generator. A
$1.4 million campus wide emergency power and electrical upgrade project provided the rewiring
of existing devices to be tied into new emergency power panels and installed new, modern,
upgraded main electrical service switches, which replaced those original to the 1930 buildings, in
Davis Hall, Gillet Hall and former Gymnasium Building. A $2 million interior rehabilitation
project corrected interior deficiencies and corrected code violations and was the impetus for a
reorganization of departments within the Fine Art Building.
Other completed projects include a Phase I of the campus wide fire, security and communication
system and station project which erected a new $5.6 million central command station for Public
Safety at Gate 5. Currently the building serves as the new main entrance to the Campus on the
Goulden Ave. side of the College. When the $7.5 million Phase II project completes installation
of the new systems, this building will serve as the command center receiving vital life safety and
security system communications and signals. The phase II project includes the installation of
emergency telephones and/or duress stations throughout the 37 acre campus and on all floors in
all campus buildings. New addressable fire alarm systems in every building and new campus
wide security systems and access control systems will report to the new Public Safety central
station at Gate 5. This project also includes expansion of the campus wide data system. The
phase I project constructed data closets on each floor in each building which is the basis of an
organized structure for data transmission, similar to other telecommunication systems. Each
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building has a main distribution closet at the lowest level which is the point of connection to the
backbone. Each main closet is cabled vertically to each intermediary closet(s) on upper floors.
Cabling is distributed horizontally to each room location on the floor from the equipment located
in each closet. This method of distribution affords the College maximum flexibility for future
expansion and alteration. The data closets also contain the data gathering panels and cabling on
each floor for new security and fire alarm systems. Another health and safety related project, a
$386,000 site lighting project phase I which installed new, brighter light fixtures on the campus
from Davis Hall to APEX, from Goulden Ave. to the Concert Hall, was completed summer
2003.
In the past five years a $2.3 million CUNY capital roof replacement project and $4.4 million
structural and building envelope rehabilitation project have completed roof replacements or
rehabilitations on ten campus buildings. This includes Carman Hall, Shuster Hall, Fine Art
Building, Fine Art/Shuster Link Building, Old Gym Building, Speech and Theatre Building
(with the exception of the roof below the cooling tower which was not replaced because of the
new cooling tower installation), Davis Hall, Gillet Hall, T-2 Building (soon to be the expanded
Child Care Center), T-3 Building and the building housing the new High School of American
Studies at Lehman College. The structural and building envelope rehabilitation project included
filling in the south east plaza of Carman Hall which created an office suite for the Irish American
Institute and the College Now program. Three other buildings and two major plaza roofs were
completed in the five years prior to 1999. There are two buildings, the Library and Concert Hall
(a.k.a. Complex II) with documents ready to bid for roofing replacement on hold pending
funding allocations. Once this project proceeds, roof replacement will be completed campus
wide and will not need to be revisited for at least 15 years.
The final project in the program for energy conservation was a $800,000 expansion of the
Sieman’s building management system (a.k.a. energy management system). The project
extended the system to include all remaining mechanical systems points in buildings on campus
which were not connected, monitored or controlled by the system. The project also replaced
steam valves and traps on main distribution risers in Davis Hall and Gillet Hall.
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In Fall 2002, Lehman College was appointed as the lead institution in a collaborative effort
among City University Bronx Colleges, Lehman College, Bronx Community College, & Hostos
Community College and Local 1199, SEIU to establish a workforce development and training
center on the third floor of 2501 Grand Concourse at the corner of Fordham Road. The facility,
CUNY on the Concourse, is a 50,000 square foot, state-of-the-art education facility with
computers in every classroom, health and nursing training labs and administrative offices.
Additional community service and outreach programs over the past five years include the
creation of the Small Business Development Center in Old Gym 007 in 2000 and the creation of
a U.S. Passport Office in Shuster Hall Room 076 in Spring 2003.
One of many collaborative programs between CUNY and the NYC Department of Education, in
the Fall 2002, the High School of American Studies at Lehman College opened with the first
freshman class in four classrooms and 3 offices in the second floor of the APEX Building. In
September 2003 the school, in its second year, moved into the newly renovated Reservoir
Building. The facility has nine classrooms, one multi-functional science laboratory,
administrative offices and a large multi-purpose room for assemblies that can be divided into
three additional classrooms. In Fall 2003, the Bronx High School of Music at Lehman College,
subsequently named the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music at Lehman College, opened in
DeWitt Clinton High School and currently utilizes Lehman’s Music Department’s facilities.
Over the past five years, Lehman has renovated or upgraded many program specific facilities in
buildings to accommodate research programs and in response to academic programmatic needs
and changes. These added or renovated facilities in Davis Hall include a fully equipped 46 seat
multi-media lecture hall, a $650,000 marine biology laboratory and a $580,000 Biology research
laboratory for Lehman’s first cluster hire, in the plant sciences. In Carman Hall we built and
equipped a computerized, fully interactive language laboratory for Language and ESL programs
as well as a multi-media radio workshop studio for Mass Communications and Multi-Lingual
Journalism programs and in the APEX we developed an Exercise Science laboratory.
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The Library has gone from traditional card catalogues to a state-of-the-art facility with
computerized workstations throughout the Library, computerized catalogues, the addition of
three computer training labs and smart classrooms equipped for multi-media presentations,
distance learning and video teleconferencing. The Library also added the Cyber Café for students
to grab a quick snack or drink while continuing to study. Lehman College is a participant in the
CUNY Honors College program. In Fall 2002 the Honors College Program seminar and study
facility located on the third floor of the Library, north west, was completed and occupied by the
first year participants.
The Fine Art Advanced Imaging Laboratory received new, high end equipment in 2003 for
digital imaging, advanced 3D modeling, animation and computer graphics. In the Speech and
Theatre Building, a new, state-of-the-art speech language pathology clinic completed in 2003 is
equipped with a computerized audio, video and intercom monitoring system to oversee, view and
supervise students working in practicum as part of the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Other departments have been reorganized and relocated to make student services more accessible
and available to students. In 2000, a Student Counseling Center was established on the first floor
of the former Gymnasium Building. The administrative departments providing student services
in Shuster Hall also were reorganized and relocated. The Registrar’s Office, records and
transcripts, etc. were relocated to the first floor joining the admissions and financial aid offices.
With the exception of this year, FY 2003/04, preventive maintenance and minor repair projects
and programs have received considerable capital funding and support which has afforded us the
opportunity to continue our programs of facility preservation, maintenance and upgrade. Annual
allocations of dedicated repair funds allow us to replace finished flooring in corridors and lobby
areas that are worn and damaged, repair or replace mechanical system components such as coils,
pumps, motors, etc., replace outdated lighting systems, resurface the tennis courts and replace
campus walkways.
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Capital Projects Expected to Begin Construction in 2004
Projects expected to enter construction this year include a 1.5 million dollar expansion of the
Child Care Center, which will add four additional classrooms and increase capacity by at least
100 students, an elevator upgrade in Davis and Gillet Hall and an accessibility project to install
elevators in the T-3 Building and Student Life Building. All three projects are in various stages
of bidding and award.
The large bonded capital project expected to be bid shortly and begin construction in the
Summer 2004 is the $13 plus million Multi-Media Center Project. The Multi-Media Center will
provide students and faculty a state-of-the-art facility for media production and distribution
campus wide, CUNY wide and world wide. The facility is located in the cellar and basement
level of Carman Hall in the space vacated when the academic computer center moved to the new
facilities on the plaza level in 1999. The 26,600 square foot facility will consists of technical
production and post-production spaces which include a two story production studio, a second,
smaller, one story audio/video production studio which includes an isolation booth and audio
sweetening room, post-production video and audio control rooms, edit rooms, a newsroom,
media conversion lab, graphics workstations, conference rooms, administrative office suite and
equipment room for media distribution.
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