In 1925 this 27,380-square-foot facility was built as the University Power Plant. It replaced Estabrook Hall as the power plant. The new power plant originally provided electricity and steam for heating the entire campus and the agricultural campus. It was a cogeneration operation much ahead of its time. It ceased to produce electricity but continued to serve as the university’s steam plant until the new steam plant was built along Neyland Drive in 1966.
Engineering students, under the direction of Dean Charles Ferris, checked the plans and were involved in the planning of the smokestack of the power plant (Pasqua), which cost $174,000. The two-hundred-foot high smokestack, designed by a power plant design class, came to a level with the base of Ayres Hall tower. Consulting engineer with official charge of planning the power plant was a former faculty member, R. McColl of Detroit. Grant C. Miller, of Miller Fullenwider, and Dowling (Chicago), provided the architectural design to be consistent with that of Ayres Hall (which the firm had designed.) The students participated in the design not only of the structure but also of the system of pipes in the heating plant and the distribution system for the steam. Pasqua is the only university facility in which students participated in the design process. The Power House was designed to be used as a testing laboratory for engineering students. The large turbine used for driving the generators was rated at 750 hp. One 500kw generator was initially installed, with room for two additional ones to be added. An addition to the power plant was funded by the WPA in 1936.
When it was no longer used as a power plant, the building had a variety of temporary uses before being renovated for 1973 occupation by the Department of Nuclear Engineering. When Dr. Pietro Pasqua, first head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering retired in December 1987, the announcement was made that the building, unnamed since 1925, would be named for him. On May 13, 1988, the facility was officially named. Dr. Pasqua, who joined the university faculty in 1952 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was named professor and head of the newly formed Department of Nuclear Engineering in 1958 and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1987.