West Virginia University officials will mark the near completion of the steel frame for the Life Sciences Building with a”topping-out”celebration at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, adjacent to the construction site behind the College of Business and Economics.

Officials and others in attendance will sign one of the last steel girders before it is hoisted onto the structure. American and WVU flags and an evergreen will adorn the beam. The evergreen is both a celebration of the steel going up without loss of life and a symbol of good luck for the future occupants of the building.

Speakers for the event will include WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr., Provost Gerald Lang, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Dean Duane Nellis and a representative of Pittsburgh-based construction manager Dick Corp.

The $43 million Life Sciences Building will house WVU s biology and psychology departments, the two largest departments in the Eberly College.

The first piece of steel was set in place Feb. 8. Plans call for completing the eight-floor, 190,000-square-foot facility in May 2002.

Payette Associates of Boston is the architect for the project.

The Life Sciences Building is one of four construction projects included in the first phase of WVU s master facilities plan �€a 10-year campus renewal program totaling more than $250 million. Other projects are a $36 million consolidated downtown library complex, a $34 million Studen Recreation Center on the Evansdale Campus and a $26 million WVU Foundation building along Morgantowns waterfront. The Recreation Center and Foundation building are scheduled to be completed this summer.