News

The renovation of The Cleveland Institute of Art’s Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts is in full swing this summer with construction workers swarming through the building to:

• Gut major sections and build new internal walls to reconfigure space

• Replace the remaining single-pane windows with insulated, energy-efficient windows

• Finish installing duct work that will allow the entire building to be air conditioned for the first time

“This summer, literally every room in the building is being worked on,” said Institute President David L. Deming ’67. “We’ve closed the building to the public and moved the staff members to our Gund Building so construction workers can have free reign.

“When students and faculty return in the fall, the McCullough building will be close to completed. Between September and December, most of the remaining work will just be finishing-touch work.”

Some sections of the building will be completed “shell space” by the end of the summer, with final touches to be added when the Institute is ready to occupy them. For instance, the ground floor on the Euclid Avenue side will house the college’s library once CIA has vacated the Gund Building on East Boulevard, where the library is now housed. Until that major transfer of the Institute’s collections takes place, the future library space will remain empty.

The McCullough renovation, which is Phase I of the Institute’s overall campus modernization and unification project, will be completed by the end of the calendar year. Phase II, the construction of a visually distinctive new building immediately west of and fully interconnected to McCullough, is slated to begin in 2011.

Unifying the campus for the first time in more than a quarter of a century will:

• Increase opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and thereby provide students with a more comprehensive education

• Equip classrooms and studios with cutting-edge technology that will provide students with a competitive advantage when they enter the workforce

• Improve the college’s ability to educate these students and graduate them as highly skilled, creative professionals who go on to contribute to our economy and culture

• Attract highly talented students and faculty to the city

• Help revitalize and build pride in a neglected Cleveland neighborhood

• Earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for energy-efficiency, use of sustainable building materials and preservation of a historic structure

Read more campus project updates.