The Wood Street corridor will be remade into a tree-lined street with adjacent Point Park University buildings, with the highly traveled Boulevard of the Allies intersection adorned with islands to slow traffic as part of a $54 million improvement plan. In addition to those details, on Monday, Point Park President Paul Hennigan said the school’s six-year strategic plan includes turning the YMCA – which the university has been in talks to purchase – into a University Commons building, a full-service gymnasium next door, and constructing a theater on property it owns in the Fifth and Forbes corridor in a plan that could cost over $100 million if all the projects are adopted. The question Hennigan acknowledged when he presented these details to the faculty assembly that included renderings of what Point Park will look like after these dramatic renovations and additions was the banal question: Do we have to pay for this? While the university has begun working with city and state governments on the proposed improvements to infrastructure, he said the university will have to pay a substantial amount of it. He said the university has $27 million to sink into the project and will be courting charitable foundations, government offices and lenders to raise the remainder. The proposals he outlined include transforming a building at 100 Wood Street, which the university bought last October for $1.2 million, into residence buildings that would add about 100 beds in an anticipated growth of 80 to 100 residents. The student union building would be comprised of adjacent properties facing Boulevard of the Allies and include lounges, study areas and street-level shopping facilities. The surface parking lot will be transformed into a park, which Hennigan described as one of the school’s green spaces; Faculty members used this time to discuss the possible financial and academic ramifications of this project. Addressing concerns that the university might not be able to keep pace with the mounting debt, Hennigan said that growth is crucial to that end. “It’s all about enrollment. Our number one risk is enrollment,” he said. He went on to say that the university could make its budget with only half of the expected growth in the years to come, but it would need to “tighten our belts.” If growth stops completely, the plan would be soluble for three years. He said after three years without any growth, the university would “be in trouble.” The ambitious plan details the intentions of the university’s administration concerning building acquisitions, renovations and street-level redevelopment. Seven million dollars of the plan will be aimed at developing the intersection of Boulevard of the Allies and Wood Street. The renderings of the street-level view that Hennigan showed to the faculty illustrated the Point Park University Seal centered in the intersection. “People say they don’t even realize they are on our campus down here,” said Hennigan said about the university needing to raise its profile through this and other street-level developments. The proposals he detailed also included the possible relocation of the Pittsburgh Playhouse to Downtown at an estimated cost of $46 million. Hennigan also included constructing a 420-space parking lot as part of the strategic plan. Vice President of Finance, Bridget Mancosh discussed the ongoing renovations of the West Penn building. She said that floors six, seven and eight will be completed by summer, adding 13 new classrooms and one new computer lab. She also said renovations to floors 11, 12 and 13 should be completed by late autumn. Natural science and engineering technology professor Dr. John Kudlac raised the issue of elevator problems. He said that at peak hours the elevators in West Penn are already overburdened and with six new floors, the problem would only be exacerbated. Faculty members discussed a number of possibilities such as making certain elevators capable of only accessing a select number of floors or adding new elevator shafts to the rear end of the building. Bill Cameron, associate vice president of operations, said he would investigate these possibilities. The faculty also voted to include a new degree in the curriculum. Director of Criminal Justice Administration Dr. Lorelei Stein said that the new degree will be called forensic science and will be part of the criminal justice and intelligence studies department.