Construction and renovation of the building will begin in May and the building is scheduled to reopen for classes in fall 2007. "The current building is inadequate to provide a modern business education to our students, and we're well beyond being crowded," says Dennis Ahlburg, dean of the Leeds School of Business.
Originally designed to serve 1,400 students when it opened in spring 1970, the building currently serves more than twice that number, about 3,600 students. Leeds School classes and offices will move to various temporary locations for the summer and into the Fleming Law Building from fall 2006 through summer 2007.
The current structure totals 100,000 sf and will be renovated during the project. A 65,000-sf four-story addition will be added to the south side of the building, extending it into what is now Observatory Field and the business school parking lot. Additional recreational space will be added to mitigate the loss of some of Observatory Field. The business building expansion will be consistent with the rest of CU-Boulder's campus architecture in a classic rural Italian style constructed of sandstone with a red tile roof.
The addition will include a four-level atrium with a commons area at the lowest level designed to serve as the "social heart" of the school. New classrooms, meeting rooms and center offices are included in the addition. The renovated and expanded business building will feature the additional space and modern technology required for enhanced business teaching, learning and research including three 100-student classrooms, two 75-student classrooms, six 50-student classrooms, and four seminar classrooms.
"Now is the time for everyone to line up behind the school and help us deliver on the promises of the school," Ahlburg says. "We have been talking about this for a long, long time and now we're doing it." Student fees will fund $15.2 million of the project. An additional $18.1 million needs to be raised from private sources to avoid tapping into an already taxed Leeds School budget, according to Ahlburg. "We have already received a $1-million gift for the project, and many other smaller gifts," Ahlburg says. "We are off to a good start, now we need to keep the momentum going."
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