University Place Office Building was a 6-story building constructed in 1924 and had been a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

to the Schenley Farms National Historic District on the campus of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

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. Once located at 121 University Place (originally Natalie Avenue), the building was originally the Schenley Office Physicians Building designed by architect Edward B. Lee and associate architect J. B. Blair for the Physicians Land Company. Long housing offices of physicians associated with the university's medical school and medical center, the building was acquired by the university in June 1983 for $1.25 million and then housed a variety of university offices, including the University Center for Social and Urban Research, until its demolition in 2011.

University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR)

In its final years of use by the university, the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) was housed within the University Place Office Building. Established in 1972, the UCSUR serves as a resource for researchers and educators interested in basic and applied social and behavioral sciences and serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Research of the UCSUR focuses on five principal areas including urban and regional analysis, survey research, qualitative data analysis, gerontology, and environmental decision support. The center also offers a graduate certificate in gerontology. In early 2009 the center opened a multipurpose data center which is

HIPAA The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy– Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, ...

and

FISMA The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA, , ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law enacted in 2002 as Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002 (, ). The act recognized the importance of information security to the eco ...

compliant. The UCSUR data center is monitored 24/7 by the UCSUR Information Technology department. The data center maintains a 99.3% up time as of the summer of 2010.

Replacement with Nordenberg Hall

University Office Place was demolished in August 2011, following the approval from the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission, to make way for a new $59 million, 10-story, 559-bed university residence hall, named Nordenberg Hall that was designed by Mackey Mitchell Architects of St. Louis along with the Pittsburgh-based firm MacLachlan, Cornelius & Filoni Inc. Nordenberg Hall, which opened for the 2013 fall semester, occupies the former footprints of 121 University Place and its former adjacent parking lot at the corner of Fifth Avenue and University Place. Former University Office Place resident UCSUR was relocated to the Gold Building (3343 Forbes Ave). Nordenberg Hall includes ground floor retail space, a university pharmacy, and a second floor student wellness and counseling center. The residence hall also contains two sound-proof music practice rooms, and on the third floor, a fitness room and an outdoor rooftop terrace. The residence hall features double-occupancy rooms that are equipped with small refrigerators, microwave ovens, and flat-screen TVs. Communal social spaces, study lounges, and bathrooms were intentionally designed to encourage students to leave their rooms to interact with other students and gain a sense of connectedness. The residence hall was named in honor of

Mark Nordenberg Mark A. Nordenberg (born July 12, 1948) is the chancellor emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh and chair of the university's Institute of Politics and Director of its Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy. A professor of law and unive ...

, the university's previous chancellor who retired in August, 2014.

In literature

University Place Office Building is the namesake and a location setting of a book published in 2007 by Louis Panesi entitled ''121 University Place: A Father's Abuse / A Doctor's Love''.

References

External links

University Place Office Building on Pitt's Virtual TourUniversity Center for Social and Urban Research
{{Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh buildings Office buildings in Pittsburgh Office buildings completed in 1924 Buildings and structures demolished in 2011 Demolished buildings and structures in Pittsburgh Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania