Drexel Gets Gift for New Building for the Lebow College of Business

November 16, 2010

Drexel University announced a $45 million gift for a new building for the LeBow College of Business from alumnus and benefactor Bennett S. LeBow. The new building, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, and Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP, is scheduled to open in 2014. The donor, chairman of the private-equity firm Vector Group and of the bookseller Borders Group, described his gift as "the best investment I ever made."

"This is phenomenal for Drexel," said John A. Fry, Drexel's president. "It's a very confident statement about Drexel's future."

The new home of the LeBow College of Business will mark the campus on the Philadelphia skyline with a bold tower; at street level, it will serve as a gateway to Drexel. Its transparent Market Street facade will showcase the College's activities; and, along with the neighboring Papadakis Integrated Science Building, it will define a quadrangle that will be the welcoming and energetic heart of the Drexel campus. Inside the building, undergraduate and graduate classrooms will be organized around a dramatic central atrium that will be accessible from welcoming entrances at the new building's three corners. An open stair within this atrium will lead down to a 300-seat auditorium and 100-seat lecture hall and up to a conference center. On the building’s upper floors faculty offices will be interspersed with seminar rooms and group study rooms—a deliberate mix of uses fostering the collegial interaction between students and faculty that is essential to the best in business education. The building is on track to receive Green Globes environmental certification.

The building will "allow students to learn in a setting that is less like a classroom and more like the corporate environment," said George P. Tsetsekos, dean of the LeBow College of Business.

"This is a time of transformation for Drexel and for the LeBow College of Business," said Graham S. Wyatt, AIA, Partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects. "Drexel and LeBow College, long embedded within the fabric of Philadelphia, are now emerging with an identifiable campus of their own. It is a challenge we take on with the utmost seriousness of purpose, but also with pride and passion."

(Rendering by dbox)