Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Co. broke ground on Salem State University’s BOLD project, a campus unification and modernization effort that will move the college’s South Campus-housed programs to its North Campus, according to an April 23 news release from the school. The project will cost $84 million, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.
Gilbane will renovate the existing Horace Mann building on Loring Avenue and expand Meier Hall on Lafayette Street to bring new lab spaces to programs housed in the building, according to the news release. Once complete, it will allow the Salem, Massachusetts, school to facilitate the state’s planned sale of its South Campus.
The Horace Mann building, vacant since 2018, will become a state-of-the-art facility for the majority of the Maguire Meservey College of Health and Human Services. It will feature nursing simulation suites, bedside skills and occupational therapy labs, student hubs and flexible classrooms, per the release. Crews will also update the building with a newly created accessible campus-facing entrance.
The Meier Hall addition will include seven high-intensity teaching labs and support spaces for Salem State. It will provide modernized lab space for several programs, including biology, chemistry and geological sciences.
In addition to the renovation and addition projects, Gilbane will also oversee the decarbonization of the North Campus through the construction of a geothermal wellfield under the faculty parking behind Meier Hall, according to a news release from the contractor. Once completed, the system of about 100 wells will help heat and cool both the Meier Hall expansion and the Horace Mann building, as well as improve the heating and cooling of the Berry Library.
As part of this effort, connections between other buildings and the wells will be installed in preparation for the project’s second phase, which will bring four additional buildings on North Campus into this system.
All three construction projects will run concurrently, though their starts will be staggered due to the initial blasting for the Meier Hall addition.
The work on Horace Mann is starting this spring, while work on Meier Hall and the decarbonization project will launch during the summer, according to the SSU release. All three are slated to be finished by the summer of 2027.
