The Community College of Allegheny County's board voted Thursday to pay a Downtown architectural firm $85,000 to redesign the school's planned $20 million science facility.
The K. Leroy Irvis Science Center, scheduled to be complete next year, qualifies as a high-rise under the city of Pittsburgh's fire code, school officials said. That designation adds another $600,000 in safety costs, school spokesman David Hoovler said.
Hayes Large Architects, which originally designed a five-story, 65,000-square-foot building, was hired to do the redesign.
Groundbreaking for the center -- which school officials say is needed to update the science and technology labs and classrooms -- was held in September at the Allegheny Campus in the North Side.
K. Leroy Irvis, who died in 2006, represented the 19th District of Pittsburgh in the state House from 1959-88 and was Speaker of the House.
He co-sponsored the bill that created the state community college system in 1963. CCAC was founded three years later.
In another matter, Joyce Breckenridge, vice president for business and administration, said CCAC has earned only about $50,000 in interest income halfway through the fiscal year.
"When we built the budget a year and a half ago, we estimated we'd earn about $480,000 for the full fiscal year. Obviously, we're way behind pace," she said after the meeting.
Tuition from an 11 percent increase in enrollment -- or about 2,000 students -- is helping prevent any cash flow problems, said board member and state Sen. Jay Costa. About 20,500 students are enrolled in CCAC, Hoovler said.
The board also decided President Barack Obama will receive an honorary degree from CCAC during the May commencement ceremony.
"We invited President Obama in the fall," said CCAC President Alex Johnson.
White House officials called Johnson shortly afterward to let him know the president had not yet set his commencement season schedule.
"We wanted to recognize him for what he's doing for community colleges," said Thomson Santone, the board's president. "We'd like him to come and share with him what we're doing here."
The president will receive the degree regardless of whether he attends the commencement, Santone said.
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