UT Regents give go-ahead for new buildings - Dental Branch and Prudential next to bite the dust

The University of Texas System's Board of Regents approved more than $2.5 billion to be spent in the construction of twenty-two new facilities for science, technology, engineering and health initiatives. These are in addition to 22 other buildings approved since this time last year. The press release also mentions that this "Texas-sized" initiative is the largest in the System's century-plus history, and the debt from bonds issued for funding will not affect the tuition costs of the schools.

With $70 million earmarked for a Center of Targeted Therapy Research for M.D. Anderson, as well as the moving of key offices in the Houston Main Building (Prudential Building) to the new Faculty Center II, one can only suspect that the Prudential Building, which has been on the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance's endangered building list, is going to be put to death soon.

In addition to the Prudential's impending demise, the pink marble of the UT Dental Branch building will be littered along the landscape to make way for a new $60 million structure.