Temple to construct multi-use building on Broad Street

This story was updated at 9:19 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3.

Not having an available room to practice in Presser Hall is a regular occurrence for Andrew Delnagro, a sophomore jazz music education major. 

For Camille Hernandez, a senior film media arts major, crowded film studios with little space to spread all of her equipment are the norm in Annenberg Hall.

The Klein College of Media and Communication and the Center for Performing and Cinematic Arts have among the lowest square-foot-per-student ratios at Temple’s Main Campus, according to a 2019 projection from Facilities Management and the Office of Institutional Risk and Assessment.

But that will change with the planned creation of a multi-use building on Broad Street that will house programs from both schools. 

The Board of Trustees approved $16 million for pre-construction designs for the building in July.

The building will be better equipped to facilitate learning by having larger classrooms, smaller meeting spaces, an integrated student media center and research equipment, wrote Don Heller, the senior vice dean of Klein in an email to The Temple News. 

“All classrooms will be equipped to facilitate learning and with technology and flexible to meet the needs today and into the future,” Heller wrote.

Construction is set to begin at the end of 2020 and will take approximately two and a half years to complete, Heller said. The university is searching for architects to design the building, he added. 

The building will either be at the former site of Peabody Residence Hall at Norris and Broad streets or the green space between Norris Street and Polett Walk and Broad and 15th streets, Heller said.

Hernandez is disappointed that she won’t be around to see the new building.

“I think it’s much needed,” Hernandez said. “A lot more film and [media studies and production] students are becoming more involved in television and media, and it’s very important that we expand our buildings to accommodate them.”

Sam Zeller, a sophomore communication studies major, is happy that Klein is finally receiving attention, she said.  

“It’s nice that we’re being recognized by the university more, especially when it seems like all the focus is always on the Fox School of Business,” Zeller said. 

Klein currently provides 15 square-feet-per-student in building space for its 2,768 students, the lowest of any school on Main Campus, according to the report’s projections. 

“We have been looking to the future for the past few years and considering needs and design to meet those needs not only today but for decades into the future,” Heller said.