Penn State’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved a proposal for a new classroom building on Penn State’s University Park campus on Friday.

The building will sit on the corner of Park Avenue and Bigler Road, across the street from East Halls and next to the Forest Resources Building. The budget for the project was set at $96 million.

The building, at this point, has no name. The board simply addressed it as “the Classroom Building.”

Construction on the building is set to begin in November 2024. The design for the building will be fully completed by July 2025, and construction will wrap up in August 2026.

The building will contain large lecture halls, and seminar-style, and flexible seating general-purpose classrooms, which will be available to all academic colleges at University Park. The new building will add approximately 2,200 seats, and class-change seating, study areas and building support spaces.

“This new classroom building represents a vital investment in our educational infrastructure,” Tracy Langkilde, the university’s interim executive vice president and provost, said in a statement. “With the expected incremental growth in University Park’s student enrollment, expanding our instructional spaces is crucial to maintaining the high standard of education we provide at Penn State.”  

The planned building is the latest of construction work on Penn State’s campus. Work on Pollock Halls will begin in May 2025, which is expected to last five years. The university is also working on major renovations to Beaver Stadium, which will run until the 2027 college football season. After Pollock Halls work is completed, Penn State will turn its eyes to renovating West Halls.

On Friday, the board also approved the lease of land for a 1,500-bed housing project at the corner of College Avenue and University Drive, and renovations and additions to the Sackett Building.