Skorton announced yesterday that 13 new construction projects have been approved, working past the construction moratorium issued last November that suspended all major construction projects not currently underway.

The moratorium was issued in order to review and prioritize the projects and capital available to the University. According to the statement, the review is quickly proceeding so that approvals can be made on a case-by-case basis while expenditures and debt are carefully monitored.

The statement also announced that information regarding pending projects will be available to the public through CUinfo under “budget resources.” The link will allow individuals to access specific data regarding projects, including the purpose, justification, funding and status.

The construction freeze an­nounced by President David Skorton on Oct. 30, 2008 will not affect all building plans and instead will permit several projects to progress.

The construction pause will give the University a chance to re-evaluate “every project that has not got the shovel in the ground,” according to Simeon Moss ’73, director of Cornell Press Relations. The University will, for example, make use of the pause to prioritize and look into the funding of such projects.

I did not think I would be writing an op-ed piece on Milstein Hall, and I do so with reservation.

The contentious debate over plans for Milstein Hall finally reached an end yesterday evening when the City of Ithaca’s Planning and Development Board unanimously approved the final site plan resolution.

The Milstein Hall discussion at yesterday’s meeting was largely procedural. Kim Michaels, senior landscape architect for Trowbridge & Wolf, LLP, and Andrew Magre ’90 presented samples of the project’s building materials to the board. No members of the public addressed the board.

Ten years and four sets of architects later, Cornell has moved one step closer to building Milstein Hall after gaining a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission last night.

With the City of Ithaca Planning and Development Board’s preliminary site plan approval of Milstein Hall on Jan. 6, Cornell now only needs final site plan approval from the planning board. A meeting to consider the approval is scheduled for later this month.

This 59,000 square-foot extension to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning will connect Rand and Sibley halls, “knit[ting] disparate programs of our college together,” said Prof. Kevin Pratt, architecture, at the meeting.

Seven years and $225 million after construction began, every brick of the West Campus Housing Initiative is in its place. One of the final steps took place on Friday with the announcement that the last house — formally House 5 — will be named in honor of Flora Rose, a nutrition professor and founder of the College of Human Ecology.

In a ceremony on Friday, Edna Dugan, assistant vice president for student and academic affairs and a Becker House fellow, announced the decision to name the house after Rose.

“We have investigated many, many deceased faculty’s biographies,” Dugan stated in a press release. “So it is so fitting that House Five should become Flora Rose House ... to recognize her legendary status in Cornell history.”

High-tech shared research facilities and innovative laboratories are just a few of the features the newest addition to the Biology Quad and the most technologically advanced research facility on campus, Weill Hall, sports. The building is set to officially open on Oct. 16, although some labs opened during the summer.

The establishment of a life science research facility has been “the highest priority for [the] University’s presidents since the early ’90s,” said Susan Henry, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Until recently, the structure was called the Life Sciences Technology Center, but the name was changed after the Weill family’s $50 million donation to the building.

NEW YORK (AP) — A construction crane collapsed Friday on New York's Upper East Side, smashing into a 23-story apartment building as it fell to the ground, killing two construction workers and seriously injuring another.

It was the second deadly crane accident in 2½ months and the latest of several construction mishaps in the city, which recently shook up its Building Department and beefed up inspections.

"What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference, adding that it appears the builders followed regulations.

On Tuesday, the City of Ithaca Planning and Development Board picked up where it left off last month by approving two proposals for Cornell construction projects.

The addition to the Campus Road side of Statler Hall’s Beck Center that a Cornell team proposed in March will now begin construction in September. Princeton, N.J.-based KSS Architects — which designed the Beck Center in 2004 — will design the addition in the same style by creating a glass and steel-based structure. The addition is expected to create more office and function space for the School of Hotel Administration.

The rumble of bulldozers is a familiar sound to most people on West Campus; however, it may come as a surprise to hear a ruckus coming from the College of Human Ecology’s Martha Van Rensselaer Hall.

Construction on the $77.7 million dollar addition began on Dec. 17 and is projected to take two and a half years to complete.

Gettin’ dirty: Workers continue construction on Martha Van Rensellaer Hall yesterday. The building is expected to be completed in 2010.The new addition, which will be approximately 88,000 square feet in size and will sit upon a 290 capacity car garage, will be added to the current west wing of MVR. One new feature will be a 5,300 square foot common area.