Tradeline Report: Retrofit or Renovate?

Tradeline has published a report entitled “Penn Renovation Yields Class A Laboratory Space for Half the Cost of New Construction: Weighing the Cost/Benefit of Retrofit vs. Gut Renovation.”

The article was inspired by a Tradeline conference talk delivered by Ballinger’s Jonathan Friedan, PE, LEED AP, and Eric Swanson, AIA, along with Perelman School of Medicine’s Eric Weckel, AIA, Executive Director for Space Planning and Operations. It presents the strategy, phased approach, and cost-saving steps behind the major renovation of Stemmler Hall, a 1970s research, classroom and administrative building in the heart of the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Ballinger’s Jonathan Friedan is quoted: “When you just do system replacements, you can get good, but not optimal, energy reductions. But you also get people complaining, ‘We spent millions of dollars, and what did we get?’ They’re still in aged compartmentalized labs, and wishing instead that they were in the brand-new lab down the street. We didn’t want to retrofit Stemmler Hall’s systems without doing something transformative to the building.”

Link to Article