There certainly isn't anything particularly headline-grabbing about a wealthy university alumnus making a financial donation to his alma mater, as the former tobacco executive
Bennett S. LeBow did back in 1999, when he gave a gift of $10 million to
Drexel University. But this past November, when LeBow once again opened his checkbook to Drexel and made a stunning $45 million donation, well, that was big news.
As it happened, the gift couldn't have arrived at a more opportune time: Administrators at Drexel have for years now been planning to make a significant upgrade to the 45-year-old
Matheson Hall, which houses the business college that is named after LeBow. LeBow's most recent financial contribution, however, will now allow for Drexel to fully demolish Matheson, which it plans to do sometime this summer. The 12-story
LeBow College of Business Building will be constructed in its place, and if the architectural
renderings and statistics can be believed, it may in fact end up being more of an attention-getter than the donation that is largely making its construction possible.
For starters, the 177,500 square-foot building will contain an entrepreneurship center with business incubator space, not to mention a five-story atrium, a finance trading lab, a 160-seat event space and a behavioral studies lab.
"The hallmark of business education at Drexel is experiential learning," said the university's dean, George P. Tsetsekos, who was instrumental in securing the LeBow donation. "A new and beautiful building will help us to better connect with the Philadelphia business communities and allow our students to learn in a setting that is less like a classroom and more like the corporate environment."
Drexel still needs to raise some $30 million for the construction of the new LeBow Building, which is scheduled to be open and operational sometime in 2014.
Source: Mark Everly, Drexel University
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a cool new house being built in the neighborhood? Please send your Development News tips here.