Eimantas Kiseliovas / Roundup
The Center for the Sciences building, located next to the Mason parking lot, will be available for use by students and teachers this summer, according to Andrew Ramsay, Sr. Project Manager.
Ramsay said the building, costing $40.25 million, will house the chemistry, physics, life sciences, nursing, veterinary technology, planetary science, and geology departments.
The Center for the Sciences will have new and more spacious labs for students, as well as stadium seating classrooms, a courtyard and a planetarium for the planetary sciences department.
It will also include animal facilities, which will have cages to shelter animals and a surgery room.
Dr. Izzy Goodman, chair of the chemistry department and the head of the user group for the Center of the Sciences, is very excited about this project.
“It’s going to be state of the art,” he said.
The building will include safer facilities, such as labs, and will have also have classrooms with the capacity of 60, 75 and 100 students, Goodman added.
The Center for the Sciences building was supposed to be open for use in the spring semester of 2010. Due to design problems and structural issues dating back to 2008, the availability of the building has been pushed to the summer of 2010, according to Ramsay.
Student Adam Benghiat said he’s excited about the new building and didn’t even know that there was going to be a planetarium or, better yet, a surgery room for animals.
—
