Login
Registered users
The Mitchell and Hilarie Morgan Hall at Temple University is a new residential, dining, and retail complex at Temple University in Philadelphia, located at the corner of Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue
This 736,000-square-foot facility houses 1,300 students in four-bed suites. Three buildings surrounding an elevated, green terrace podium provide 27 floors of residential space in a slender tower and an adjacent, L-shaped midrise structure with eight residential floors.As a key project identified in the Temple 20/20 Masterplan – which MGA Partners completed with Olin Partnership in 2010 – the complex also called the South Gateway has been applauded for a design that helps transform the University into a community-engaged, pedestrian-oriented, academic and cultural destination. Along the Broad Street corridor is a 50,000-square-foot retail and dining pavilion, serving both the student population, and surrounding community.The project encompasses a full city block on the southern edge of Temple’s campus, and so announces the institution to all who approach from Philadelphia’s Center City. The new complex also is the culmination of pedestrian spine known as Liacouras Walk, which runs through the Temple University campus.
The South Gateway development helps provide an appropriate balance of university and community spaces, one of the key initiatives in the Temple 20/20 Masterplan, “The vision for the project began by lining the site with residential and commercial structures, opening up a raised terrace at the core, which becomes the communal yard for the students housed within,” explains Daniel Kelley, senior partner with MGA Partners and lead designer for Morgan Hall.
The student residences are configured in suites, creating vertical neighborhoods of 60 students that will facilitate strong bonds of community within the larger complex. The neighborhoods share double-height lounges, which are articulated as glass volumes at the corners of the residential buildings, expressing the student life to the community and campus beyond.
Also part of the masterplan framework, a $48 million renovation and expansion of McGonigle and Pearson Halls on Broad Street adds related facilities. The work to upgrade these 1960s-era buildings brings additional athletic courts, exercise space, classrooms, faculty and coaching staff offices, upgraded studios for the department of dance, new men’s and women’s basketball practice courts and a new front atrium providing retail opportunities and transparency to Broad Street.
The third project is the construction of a parking facility that would replace a surface parking lot lost as part of the residence hall construction. The Temple 20/20: Destination Temple framework calls for replacing surface parking lots on campus with structured parking facilities that will provide a small net increase in campus parking.
“Morgan Hall will be unlike any current Temple residential complex, and adds more than 1,000 beds, along with campus dining and street-level retail space,” said Anthony Wagner, senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. “Requests for student housing have significantly increased in recent years, and this project will go a long way toward addressing that demand. And room, board and retail rental income will ensure the complex pays for itself over time.”
Location: Philadelphia, USA
Client: Temple University
Completion: 2013
Gross Floor Area: 68.000 m2
Cost of Construction: 172.029.000 Euros
Architects: MGA Partners
Contractor: L.F. Driscoll
Consultants
Structural: CVM Structural Engineers
Photography: © MGA Partners
