It’s official: Lawrence Hall is finally getting A/C, according to university President Chris Brussalis.

Brussalis said officials plan on implementing air-conditioning to cool off the entire building by the end of summer.

Chris Hill, vice president of operations at Physical Plant, will oversee the central cooling upgrade.

Hill previously floated a variety of strategies to cool Lawrence Hall, like repiping the entire building. Another was to install electrical grids on each floor to power window units.

That option is still on the table, Hill said, but he clarified Physical Plant is “investigating the viability of that plan.”

For about as long as Lawrence Hall has been in the university’s possession, officials have written off air-conditioning as impossible.
They often cited that, because it was built nearly 100 years ago in 1928, Lawrence Hall’s grid can’t handle powering enough units to keep the building cool.

The building’s roof was also commonly cited as a concern, with the SGA section on Point Park’s website still noting that adding a cooling system would put Lawrence Hall in “structural danger.”