Proposed renovations to Coover Hall are planned to add new laboratory space for engineering students.

Diane Rover, associate dean for engineering administration, said the plan to renovate and add an addition to Coover Hall has been approved by the Iowa Legislature and is now awaiting approval by the Iowa Board of Regents. The new addition will cost approximately $12 million, half of which should come from state funding and the other half from private donations. An additional $13 million is needed for renovation of the existing structure, which is planned to come from private donations.

“This has been a very exciting process from the start. Very complicated but definitely exciting. I am very pleased that it has come this far,” Rover said.

Coover Hall, originally opened in 1953, underwent renovations in 1999 when the auditorium and lab space were redone.

Currently Coover Hall houses electrical and computer engineering labs, along with general university classrooms and an auditorium. The new addition could add more space for lab areas dedicated to electrical and computer engineering.

The rest of the renovated space should remain open for general university use.

“We are very excited to have this new addition. Not only will it provide new lab space for the engineering students, but will also provide informal student space similar to the open space in the Gerdin Business Building,” Rover said.

She said construction is to begin as soon as possible and will hopefully be completed by spring of 2006.

Rover said construction and renovation will be made “as painless as possible” and Coover should remain open for classes through the fall semester.

The renovations planned for Coover Hall require the removal of a one-hundred-year-old tree, one of the oldest on campus. Although the loss of the tree is regrettable, Mark Grief, architect for facilities and planning management, said they foresee no problems in removing it.

He said the firms involved in the renovation planning were OPN Architects based in Cedar Rapids and EAI Consultants based in Cambridge, Mass.

The cost estimates came from Stecker-Harmsen, Inc., which worked with design firms and architects. Stecker also did the cost estimates for the renovation of Morill Hall.