NEW YORK CITY-The expansion of Fordham University’s eight-acre Manhattan superblock is beginning to take shape, as faculty and city officials symbolically broke ground on a $250-million new School of Law and undergraduate residence hall here at Robert Moses Plaza Monday evening. The 22-story facility, designed by architects Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, is scheduled for a 2014 completion at 62^nd Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues.

Calling it a “transforming event” in the university’s Lincoln Center campus, keynote speaker Dennis G. Jacobs, chief judge of the second circuit US Court of Appeals, said Fordham law’s fundraising campaign helped raise more than $400 million toward construction of the facility. The structure is part of a $1.6-billion total redevelopment of the campus, which when completed, will feature new graduate schools of business administration, social service and education, each with residence hall space; an expanded library system; a theater, gallery, bookstore and caf