{"id":136946,"date":"2026-01-29T23:56:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136946\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T23:56:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:56:06","slug":"science-and-technology-building-now-mostly-back-to-normal-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136946\/","title":{"rendered":"Science and Technology Building, now (mostly) back to normal \u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

By Irena Mesa<\/p>\n

The Science and Technology Building, one of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg\u2019s lab and teaching spaces, first opened in 2009. Despite the new construction at that time, it\u2019s already had maintenance issues. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roof was a problem from day one,\u201d said Dr. Henry Alegria, the associate chair of the university\u2019s chemistry department.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Ana Hoare, the teaching lab manager of chemistry, also experienced issues with the roof of the building. She told The Crow\u2019s Nest that the roof leaked in several places, and water would collect after it rained and would begin leaking into the labs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became really chronic whenever we had our summer storms, because then you would\u00a0 have a deluge come down every couple of days,\u201d Hoare said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The issues were eventually fixed, but Hurricanes Helene and Milton brought a new set of problems along with the destruction left in their wake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most prominent problems included the roofing, water collecting and leaking from the fume hoods, pressure imbalances causing doors to get stuck and large fluctuations in the building\u2019s temperature.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have periods in the labs where it would get super hot. And then there were other periods of time when it was so frigid that I and my staff had to wear base layers under our clothes to work,\u201d Hoare said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the fall 2024 semester, the department agreed on a plan to have the repairs take place over the winter break. Come spring of 2025, the issues were better, but still apparent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d report the problems and be told \u2018Oh, next week, then month,\u2019 so we would do one week online and thinking were coming in person again, just for them to do give an update and \u2018Well, not really,\u2019 and go online again,\u201d Alegria said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hoare echoed Alegria\u2019s frustrations with the mix-ups and false promises of the timeline of the repairs. At the end of the spring semester, the decision was made to completely close STG over the summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat job was supposed to have been completed in July. And then it was August. And then the next month and then the next month,\u201d Alegria said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Part of the problem was found in having different contractors for different parts of the building, such as software, roofing and plumbing \u2014 and that created a lot of scheduling issues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

STG did not fully reopen until Nov. 2025. Until that point, labs were fully online or in the Warehouse Lab when possible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe frustration is that lab classes are supposed to give students a hands-on experience, not a virtual one,\u201d Alegria said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Alegria and Hoare were upset that they were unable to provide a proper lab experience for their students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The limited options and the back-and-forth status of STG frustrated a lot of students who frequent the building. Delainey Beams, a sophomore biology major, was one such student.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was really only one true lab [last semester]. The others previous to that were like, \u2018Oh, just make a periodic table,\u2019 and I felt like I wasn\u2019t actually doing chemistry,\u201d Beams said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beams said that she didn\u2019t mind the classes being online, but much like her professors, would have liked to have more notice about the location of her classes, as well as the rate that was paid for the courses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re having all of these maintenance issues and you\u2019re charging people who are possibly on financial aid and are paying money to get an in-person lab and have the experience and then they\u2019re getting 75% of their semester online,\u201d Beams said. \u201cIt\u2019s just disappointing because there are people who genuinely do enjoy going to the lab, putting on their lab coat and doing experiments. No one wants to have to click through a laggy simulation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haley Beggs, a sophomore majoring in biology, also said that students were unable to drop one of the semester\u2019s labs. In each lab class, students get to select one lab session and connected assignments to exempt themselves from.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to use my drop to leave early for Thanksgiving, which was the second in person lab that semester. They were like, \u2018No, you can\u2019t use that,\u2019 so I had to speak to Dr. Alegria and the [chemistry department] because I couldn\u2019t change my flight,\u201d Beggs said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beggs was thankful that the professors allowed her to use that drop but expressed her frustrations in the timing of the notice for the lab drops.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hoare estimated that the building is about 75% open and is hopeful that all of the repairs will be fully completed soon. \u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 31 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Written by: Irena Mesa<\/a> on January 29, 2026.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest By Irena Mesa The Science and Technology Building, one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-136946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}