ICA names new head after seven - month search

University officials announced plans last Thursday to build two new facilities at 34th and Chestnut streets as part of a $111 million project expected to provide more housing, classroom space, and retail and restaurants on the eastern end of campus. While the project is still in its preliminary stages, the proposal calls for a 19story, 250-room residential building, a five-story academic facility—which will include classrooms and research space — and a 786-car parking garage. An additional 28,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, to be located on the ground floor of the residential tower, is also slated for the project. Penn recently bid $8.2 million on the 2.6-acre site, which is owned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and currently used as a parking lot. The buildings are tentatively expected to be completed in five years, but administrators have not yet set a date for construction to begin. The proposal must still undergo city approval before Penn purchases the land. According to Executive Vice President John Fry, the new development fulfills three important University priorities — to extend "academic space" on campus, to increase residential and retail options and to provide more campus-area parking — in one "crucial piece of property." And lorn Lussenhop, the University's top real estate official, said that the new faculties "will add to the vitality of the University more than a giant, empty parking lot" Fry said yesterday that the proposed residential space will primarily accommodate those with temporary housing needs, including graduate students and faculty members who need to stay on iMLJ'rm