CU School Set for $33.3M Renovation, Expansion

Construction will start this month on the $33.3 million renovation and expansion of the CU-Boulder Leeds School of Business. Completion is set for 2007. (Rendering courtesy CU-Boulder Leeds School of Business.)

After several years of funding delays, the increasingly crowded building that houses the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business will close May 12 for a year-long $33.3 million renovation and expansion project.

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.

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.

Construction and renovation of the building will begin in May; the building is scheduled to reopen for classes in fall 2007. The school will host a public groundbreaking at 5 p.m. on May 5 outside the current building.

The work will include asbestos abatement; a 50,000-sq-ft renovation; sprinkler and HVAC upgrades to the entire building; a 63,150-sq-ft structural steel-and-stone veneer addition; and significant site upgrades to the business quad greenbelt on the west side of the site. The addition includes classrooms, dining facilities and an atrium with limestone pavers and a copper-clad dome.

Pinkard Construction Co. is the general contractor for the project. The architects are Davis Partnership PC in Denver and ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. Engineers include Martin/Martin., Shaffer-Baucom Engineering & Consulting, Hefferan Partnership Inc., Sparling Inc. and Thomas Ricca Associates.

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Crowded Conditions

"The current building is inadequate to provide a modern business education to our students, and we're well beyond being crowded," said Dennis Ahlburg, dean of the Leeds School of Business.

The current structure totals 100,000 sq ft and will be renovated during the project. A 65,000-sq-ft, 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 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.

Modern Space

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, all of which are "smart classrooms;"
• An "information commons" that will include 24 student-team rooms, a 24-hour café, state-of-the-art technology and will be attached to the newly renovated business library;
• An MBA office suite, four MBA classrooms and an MBA business center and lounge;
• A business centers suite that will include three conference rooms, a board room, a reception area and numerous offices for the school's centers;
• A dean's suite with a conference room and several offices;
• A full-service dining area for breakfast, lunch and dinner;
• A Business Research Division suite that will include a conference room, library research room and offices and workspace for researchers and students;
• Newly renovated faculty offices, a faculty conference room, support office and work room; and
• An undergraduate suite with offices, a student organization room and a conference room.

"We're excited about the building and really want people to feel like this is their school," Ahlburg said. "Now is the time for everyone to line up behind the school and help us deliver on the promises of the school. We have been talking about this for a long, long time and now we're doing it."

Project Funding

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, Ahlburg said.

"We have already received a $1 million gift for the project and many other smaller gifts," he said. "We are off to a good start. Now we need to keep the momentum going."

In April 2004 the CU-Boulder student government approved a new student fee on all full-time students. The fee will begin in the fall and increase from $100 a year to $400 a year over a four-year period. The new fee will be assessed for 20 years and also helps to finance three other campus projects - the new Wolf Law Building, the ATLAS Center and a visual arts complex.

Temporary Move

The task of moving an entire school's faculty out of offices for a year, including those who have to teach summer school, is not an easy one, Ahlburg said.

Faculty with student-related responsibilities over the summer will be located in the University Club, while administrators will be on the East Campus in administrative buildings. For the 2006-07 school year, business school operations will be held in the Fleming Law Building.

"It's been a mad scramble to find places to deliver our programs, and the law school has been incredibly helpful by providing us space," Ahlburg said. "This has been a tremendous collaboration."

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.

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