If you’re in downtown Harrisburg this weekend, look up.
Crews will begin building a 255-foot-high tower crane on the site of Harrisburg University’s 11-story Health Science Education Center under construction at South Third and Chestnut streets Friday morning.
Chestnut Street, between South Second and South Third streets, will close at 6 a.m. to make room for the assembly of the crane that can lift 35,275 pounds. The street will reopen at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
The new building will contain 260,000 square feet of academic space and will accommodate at least 1,000 new students in nursing, pharmaceutical sciences and other allied health programs.
The center also will include classrooms and training space for advanced manufacturing and interactive media programs, in addition to auditoriums, and student life and tutoring areas.
The timeline for the project has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The building, slated to open in January of 2022 prior to the pandemic, is expected to open in 2023.
The University is spending $100 million on this project. No tax-exempt bonds will pay for the construction of the building.
Harrisburg-based Reynolds Enterprises Inc. and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., based in Baltimore, were hired to support Butler County architect Alex Wing of Stantec on pre-construction plans for the building.
The university broke ground on the project in July of 2019.
Check out PennLive’s coverage of the crane assembly here.
“Post image by Dan Gleiter via PennLive.”
ABOUT HARRISBURG UNIVERSITY
Accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Harrisburg University is a private nonprofit university offering bachelor and graduate degree programs in science, technology, and math fields. For more information on the University’s affordable demand-driven undergraduate and graduate programs, call 717-901-5146 or email, Connect@HarrisburgU.edu. Follow on Twitter (@HarrisburgU) and Facebook (Facebook.com/HarrisburgU).
