UC Haas School of Business starts work on $60M classroom building

Ron Leuty – Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

A $60 million structure, funded by private donations, is under construction by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

The six-story, 80,000-square-foot building is expected to be finished in fall 2016 and will include eight classrooms of 76 to 140 seats that can be converted to flexible-use rooms or new classroom designs in the future. It also will have 28 study rooms, a 300-seat event space with views of San Francisco Bay and a 3,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor cafe.

But the building also may be notable for what won’t be inside: administrative offices.

“The goal of the new facility is to create the best, most up-to-date learning experience for our students,” Rich Lyons, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School, said in a press release. “It’s all about them.”

The structure was designed by Perkins+Will, and Vance Brown Builders of Palo Alto is the general contractor.

The North Academic Building, as it currently is known, is the first newly constructed addition to the three-building Haas School campus since 1995. It increases the Haas School’s space by a third, officials said.

Fundraising for the structure began three years ago, and the school said the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund, as well as retired Capital Research and Management Co. senior vice president Robert O’Donnell and late Simpson Manufacturing Co. founder Barclay Simpson made “significant gifts” to the campaign.

Ned Spieker, managing partner of real estate firm Spieker Partners, was the lead partner for developing the building’s vision, school officials said.

The Haas School has more than 2,200 students, including in master’s and Ph.D. in business administration programs.

[Source]: San Francisco Business Times