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University of Illinois at Chicago building new computer science center - Crain's Chicago Business

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The University of Illinois at Chicago is plunging ahead with a plan to build a new computer science building costing about $115 million, despite the fiscal challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt all universities.

Construction on the new Computer Design Research & Learning Center is scheduled to start in the spring and will double capacity for the university’s growing computer science department, the university and its architectural firm said.

The new building, which will provide 135,000 square feet of classroom, lab, study, office and conference space for the department, was approved by the University of Illinois board of trustees in March. It's expected to be completed by 2023.

While the University of Illinois System, which includes campuses in Chicago, Champaign-Urbana and Springfield, has grappled this year with additional costs and financial strain brought on by the pandemic, the system reported record student enrollment for this fall, including at the Chicago campus.

UIC, the second-biggest public university in the state, is striving to meet rising student demand for computer science degrees. Three years ago, computer science became the most popular major within UIC’s College of Engineering. Enrollment rose 10 percent this year to 1,885 computer science students, including undergraduate and graduate students, and the headcount is expected to grow 40 percent by 2025, said Peter Nelson, dean of UIC’s College of Engineering.

“The true bottleneck is that we don’t have any place to put faculty members,” Nelson said. The department's 58 full-time and five part-time faculty members are spread across four buildings and some use the library as an office, he said.

The university expects the new building on Taylor Street to fill out a collection of six engineering buildings. Before the college's new innovation building was completed last year, UIC hadn't had a new addition in 30 years, Nelson said. 

“The commitment on the university’s part has really been unflinching,” said Stephen Van Dyck, a partner at Seattle-based LMN Architects, which designed the building with Chicago-based Booth Hansen.“The curving geometry is completely new to the campus,” he said of the design, noting it will be more welcoming, with lots of windows and  a winter garden, than the current  “cold, crisp, angular buildings."

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University of Illinois at Chicago building new computer science center - Crain's Chicago Business
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