Point Park University Architect Planner Elmer Burger points excitedly to a sequential array of floor plans for the new Pittsburgh Playhouse in a conference room at the Bank Tower.The designs range from early rendition freehand drawings to computer rendered models displaying interior spaces. All are still in the schematic design process, but close to fruition—the images should be unveiled to the public mid-February.Since the master plan was created for the Academic Village Initiative 2009, many things have changed. The university is now focusing on the transition of the Oakland Playhouse to Downtown in the University Center building instead of starting construction of the additions to the Student and Convocation Center previously planned to precede the new Playhouse. If its construction begins when Burger projects it to in 2014, the new Playhouse could open its doors as early as 2016.But it is not only going to be a Playhouse with a proscenium/thrust theater with about 500 seats, a “transformational” theater with about 250 seats and a black box theater with 150 seats, it will also still be the university’s library as well as a home to the cinema and digital arts program.The University Center’s 35,000 square feet will be completely remodeled. And behind it, 85,000 more square feet of new construction will be built on property the university owns.“There’s a lot of dominos that you need to do,” Burger said Thursday. “There’s so much happening here that’s amazing.”It is Burger primary responsibility to coordinate the design efforts for these projects in the Academic Village Master Plan. He and his team of designers have been working on schematic design, or placing the spaces in plan form, for the new Playhouse for five months.After Point Park bought the YMCA and made it into the Student and Convocation Center in 2010, Burger said he discovered that the Center has been heavily used and is “a very popular place for students and staff.” Burger realized there was an opportunity to switch plans from constructing $32 million worth of Student Center additions and renovations to focusing on moving the Playhouse.Plans posted on the university’s website still state that the Playhouse will include a parking garage and a residence hall. Both of those plans have since changed.Because performances at the Playhouse happen at off-peak hours, Burger said there are hundreds of parking spaces within a five-minute walk of the new Playhouse.“Underground parking is the most expensive parking,” he said. “It could cost $25-35,000 a spot a car to build a garage. That is a huge cost impact that if we don’t have to spend it, we don’t want to.”A very early study had housing built on top of the parking garage, but after a design studio at Carnegie Mellon University looked at the new Playhouse as a hypothetical project and left out the 400-bed housing for simplicity reasons, university designers decided it would be a big enough project itself without the housing.“The neat thing I think about Point Park is that we have 18 buildings, and only two of them were built specifically for the university, George Rowland White performance Center and Thayer Hall. All the other ones we bought were older buildings and renovated. So my prediction is that we will more than likely buy an older building and renovate it for housing,” Burger said. “It will be nice to walk two blocks to your class rather than hop on a bus.”The old Playhouse will be sold, but what will become of the library currently occupying the University Center? Early plans had the library moving back to its original location in Academic Hall, but a recent analysis showed that it would be advantageous for it to stay in the same building and coexist next to the Playhouse—and be even larger.“You give up some space, but you gain more,” Burger said. “Where the TV studio is, control booths, cinema digital arts equipment–that whole level below it is empty. So that will be developed as part of the library.”Most of the traffic coming in and out of the Playhouse will happen in the main University Center entrance on Wood Street, but patrons coming to a performance or buying tickets at the box office will be entering through what is now a green Point Park banner on Forbes Avenue.The entrance on Fourth Avenue for cinema and digital arts students transferring equipment for shoots will stay the same.Burger said funds for the project come from many different sources at federal, state, local and county levels.“This school has probably one of the best development and fund raising efforts that I’ve ever seen,” Burger said.Burger said the total project budget is $45 million, a figure much less than the projected $100 million on the university’s online Academic Village Initiative Factsheet for Phase II of the Academic Village Initiative–which is the construction of the new Playhouse. This number fluctuates as the designs do because they include development, building purchase, legal and approval costs. Burger calls the process a “ripple effect.”Burger said all of the money used for the Academic Initiative would not affect tuition.“That’s the goal,” Burger said. “The funds have come from sources that aren’t dependent on the tuition because that’s such a sensitive commodity. Practically, with this kind of economy, you just can’t do that.”He said the cooperation between the three biggest contributors in Downtown, Point Park University, PNC bank and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, has been “amazing.”Burger then hinted to another renovation project by Point Park to happen in the future, requiring the cooperation between two other construction projects happening at the same time–including the construction of the PNC tower–so they don’t interfere with each other.“It’s time,” Burger said. “for this part of town to really shine.”