Community College of Allegheny County trustees yesterday authorized administrators to lower the visible height of a science center planned for the Allegheny campus if the city treats the hillside development as a high-rise.

As currently designed, a side of the building along Galveston Avenue exceeds the 75-foot high-rise threshold, college officials said. They say that would add $543,500 to the safety-related costs of meeting code, and last month trustees authorized a design study to see if there were reasonable alternatives.

The plan approved yesterday -- lowering the building by one level and raising part of Galveston Avenue by seven feet -- would add $691,637 to the project, bringing its projected cost to $21.1 million, college officials said. But they said the design change also provides a number of other benefits, including reducing the cost of a planned parking lot nearby, better delivery vehicle access and allowing windows in classroom and lab areas that would otherwise not have them.

Officials said they hope to break ground this summer on the building and have it ready for spring 2012.

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