Construction begins for Hynes Institute

Abigail Rapillo News Editor

Construction on Spellman Hall has begun and is expected to be completed in August of 2019, according to Rich Murray, the director of facilities management at Iona.

The construction project will add a permanent space for the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“Once complete, the addition of the Hynes Institute on Campus will [be a] very attractive space both inside and out,” Murray said in an email interview.

Lendynette Pacheco-Jorge, the assistant director of the Hynes Institute, said she expects the new space will be ready to be used by the fall of 2019.

“The new space will have a positive impact for the Hynes Institute because it will allow us increase our co-curricular programming and expand our curricular offerings, and it will allow us to make GaelVenture an official incubator space with [sic] student entrepreneurs can run their business venture[s] from,” Pacheco-Jorge said in an email interview.

An elevator will also be included in the renovations, which Murray says is a positive addition.

“The elevator will allow Handicap [sic] individuals to access all three floors of Spellman from within the building,” Murray said. “Allowing Handicap access to all departments that are housed on the second floor is very exciting.”

Currently, Spellman Hall is one of the three buildings on-campus with no elevator, along with Amend Hall and Rice Hall.

The first part of the construction was putting up the green scaffolding visible over the Spellman portico.

Murray said that at no time will Spellman be entirely closed. Two offices on the top floor of Spellman have been relocated, and other offices are in the process of being relocated to the main floor of the building, according to Murray. He also said that classrooms on the main floor of the building will not be relocated and are not expected to be affected by the construction.

Because Spellman is located in the middle of campus, traffic will be affected going in front of the building. Contractors will be required to signal to traffic using flagmen to keep the area safe, according to Murray.