Deal reached to end Jersey City teacher strike

A deal was reached Sunday night on a new contract for Jersey City's teachers, paving the way for them to return to classrooms Monday morning after striking on Friday.

The tentative contract agreement would end an eight-month dispute between the 29,000-student district and its 3,100 teachers. It must be approved by the nine-member school board and members of the teachers union.

Pitt to challenge grad student union election petition

Pitt administrators have told the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board they plan challenge the graduate student petition to hold a union election, organizers said Wednesday.

Pitt will look to convince the board that graduate students aren’t employees. The labor board in February ruled that graduate students at Penn State were considered employees and could unionize.
In a post on Facebook, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee called the move an “attempt to drag out the process in hopes of busting our union.” 

Administrators, Trustees Talk Grad Student Unionization

Penn State Provost Nick Jones on Thursday updated the Board of Trustees Committee on Academic Affairs and Student Life about the process graduate students are currently going through for potential unionization.

Pennsylvania’s Labor Relations Board ruled earlier this month that Penn State’s graduate students are considered employees and are therefore entitled to unionize if they so choose. No election date has yet been set.

Non-union workers deserve chance to build Easton Da Vinci project

I was initially excited to read the Jan. 2 Your View about the Easton Da Vinci project. I had recently reviewed the scope of the project and agree it will be a centerpiece for the community. Easton deserves to see Da Vinci Science City delivered with the highest quality, as designed, at or below budget. To meet this end, I feel all options should available for its construction. 

As president and CEO of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Eastern Pennsylvania, I witness our members completing large-scale projects by utilizing all the qualified contractors available to them. Stating union construction jobs will be created, as the article mentioned, immediately infers exclusion of highly qualified contractors that choose not to be signatory to a trade union.

As this project is brought to fruition, my hope is that a merit shop solution is utilized — a solution based on a philosophy that encourages open competition and a free-enterprise approach that awards contracts based solely on merit, regardless of labor affiliation. Merit shop is not union vs. nonunion. It's simply a way of doing business, built on free enterprise.

Joseph Perpiglia

The writer is president and CEO
of Associated Builders and
Contractors of Eastern Pennsylvania

Source: The Morning Call

Rowan leases land to developer for huge sports complex in Gloucester County

It will be a huge sports-o-rama out in Gloucester County.

Rowan University of Glassboro, N.J., announced plans to lease 300 acres it owns in Harrison to a developer to build a sports complex that would include an arena and dozens of athletic fields.

The project would be near the hospital Inspira is constructing in Mullica Hill on 100 acres it acquired from the university. Rowan has been amassing land in Harrison for the past 15 years. It now owns 600 acres. The Courier-Post has the story about the sports complex.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal

Union workers unite to build Temple’s new library

 

Sitting in a construction trailer known as the “meeting room,” workers wearing boots covered in dirt and dry mud talk about what it’s like to build one of the biggest capital projects in Temple history: the new library. The four-story, 225,000-square-foot academic commons, at Liacouras and Polett walks, is being built by hundreds of union workers.

 

Philly's Central High gets $10M gift for major expansion

Attending Central High School affected Joseph M. Field’s life profoundly, but he never forgot that the public school that shaped him had one major shortcoming, even when he attended in the late 1940s: It lacked a proper performance space for its many promising musicians.

Powered by Field’s $10 million gift, Central High School officials on Wednesday announced a $42 million, public-private capital campaign to improve and expand their campus. The centerpiece will be the Joseph and Marie Field Performing Arts Center, a 400-seat, state-of-the-art venue that will finally fill the gap Field first noticed in 1945.

University of Delaware eyes $60M facelift for football stadium, athletic complex

The University of Delaware is well on its way to raising the money for a $60 million project to renovate its football stadium and athletic complex, officials say.

Long an NCAA gridiron powerhouse among the second tier of Division I schools, UD has won seven national titles, and appeared in three championship games from 2003 to 2010.

Though the last seven seasons have been relatively subpar, under new coach Danny Rocco, the Blue Hens are back in playoff contention this season.

Now the school’s football program and other sports teams are getting what many consider a long-needed boost: modernizing Delaware Stadium and constructing a five-story glass-and-steel athletic center along its western facade.

The project is part of a $750 million fundraising campaign announced this month by the university.

Among the top goals of the endeavor, which UD has dubbed Delaware First, is enhancing graduate education, the fledgling Biden Institute, and other programs for innovation and entrepreneurship. The money will provide more financial support for scholarships, faculty support, research projects, and better facilities.

How many more dollars are needed to commence the athletic center project, at whyy.org.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal

Amtrak reveals new designs for Station Plaza at 30th Street Station

Amtrak just revealed its preferred design concept for its “grand civic space” at 30th Street Station, swapping out proposed circular paving patterns for circular benches and planters, instead. That, plus a big plan to improve traffic and pedestrian flow around the station.

Brandywine, Drexel break ground on $3.5B Schuylkill Yards project

It's been called one of Philadelphia's most critical real estate developments.

Today, with Mayor Jim Kenney and other politicians on site, Drexel University and Brandywine Realty Trust broke ground on the modest first phase of what's officially called Schuylkill Yards Innovation Community — a $3.5 billion, 14-acre mixed-use project the developers hope will lure Amazon's vaunted second headquarters.

Penn announces plans for a new residential building at 40th and Walnut streets: New College House West will cost the University a record-breaking $163 million

The University Board of Trustees approved plans on Thursday to build New College House West — a residential building that will cost the University a record-breaking $163 million, Penn President Amy Gutmann said at the board meeting. The new building will be constructed on 40th and Walnut streets, where the high rise field is currently located.

New College House West will begin construction in the spring of 2018 and is expected to open in the fall of 2021, according to a press release.

West Chester University officials unveil construction plans

WEST CHESTER >> West Chester University is growing. WCU officials unveiled future construction plans, talked about ongoing projects and celebrated recently completed additions to the campus, at Friday’s annual briefing session concerning future plans, at Philips Memorial Building.


WCU, with 17,000 students, is the largest university in the 14-institution Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Work starts on apartment tower near Temple U. and historic North Broad Street venues

Crews have begun work on an 18-story metal-and-glass-clad apartment building near Temple University that will share a North Broad Street block with the historic Blue Horizon boxing venue and New Freedom Theatre.

KOZs proposed, renewed to lure Amazon to University City

Philadelphia is preparing an incentive package for Amazon, in hopes of attracting the corporation to establish its second headquarters in the city. This week, legislation is advancing to help sweeten the offer.

On Tuesday, City Council’s Finance Committee gave a favorable vote to a bill that would renew twelve Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) designations for properties in University City. The bill also gives approval for the city to seek seven additional KOZ designations in the same area, many of which were unsuccessfully submitted for consideration last year. The Wolf administration, however, put a freeze on tax break programs during the budget standoff, so the city’s submissions last year were rejected.

New housing complex for Temple students breaks ground

Blue Bell-based Goldenberg Group has broken ground on a 984-bed student-housing development near the Temple University campus at 12th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

The $199 million project will include 30,000 square feet of ground-level retail, restaurant and commercial space opening to a plaza with seating, green space, and activity areas, Goldenberg said in a release Wednesday.

The 470,000-square-foot, privately run complex is to join the company’s three-year-old View at Montgomery student-housing tower on a 4.6-acre site between 11th and 12th Streets, where John Wanamaker High School previously stood.

The complex, scheduled for completion in summer of 2019, is being financed through a $163 million loan from Goldman Sachs & Co.’s merchant banking division, Goldenberg said.

Source: Philly.com