Drury University in Springfield, Mo., is scheduled to break ground this week on its first new academic building in 20 years.
The Springfield News Leader reports that the Enterprise Center will be a three-story, 56,700-square-foot facility that will cost $27 million.
The building is the first major project in Drury's campus master plan. The $27 million project was funded through private donations.
The plans for the building:
- Promote interdisciplinary learning by providing a new home for the Breech School of Business Administration and the Department of Political Science and International Affairs.
- Reflect an emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation that balances learning-by-studying with learning-by-doing.
- Provide space for the Robert and Mary Cox Compass Center, which brings together academic advising, career planning and development, and academic life coaching in a one-stop-shop for students.
- A 10,500-square-foot Center for Executive Education attached by a colonnade to the main building. This conference center and flexible event space will be used extensively by the entire Drury campus and will be available for community use as well.
- A café that will be open to the public.
University Vice President David Hinson says architectural elements present on the Drury campus will be reflected in the new building.
"We wanted it to be new and to be modern, but we wanted it to be something that you would look at and say 'That fits within the Drury campus,'" he says. "The elements of the red brick, the stone elements."
Construction is expected to start mid-November and wrap up by summer 2022 so it can be open for fall 2022 classes.
The architects are Cooper Robertson & Partners and Trivers.
