Butler students and faculty walk through the new Lacy School of Business. Photo by Meghan Stratton.
MEGHAN STRATTON | MANAGING EDITOR | mrstratt@butler.edu
Butler University’s new Andre B. Lacy School of Business building is officially open for the school year. The new building will welcome students into nine classrooms, numerous meeting and study spaces, and a cafe. The 110,000 square foot building also boasts a trading room with live market data and a rooftop study deck.
The $50 million building replaces Holcomb Building, which is now closed in preparation for the science complex expansion project. The project began with a $25 million donation from Andre B. Lacy and his wife Julia in 2016.
Stephen Standifird, dean of Lacy School of Business, hopes the Butler community will see the new business building as a community space.
“The whole center and peripheral of the building is designed to create an opportunity for people to come together,” Standifird said. “And the term our architect uses is collaborative collisions, where people are actually coming together and connecting in interesting ways.”
As students begin to explore the new building, they will notice five floors of open concept space in addition to the traditional classrooms and offices.
Payton Greenlee, a first-year marketing major, said her favorite part of the new building is the floor to ceiling glass windows.
“All the natural sunlight makes the room look so much bigger,” Greenlee said. “I think the business building is a great addition for the whole university, not just the business students.”
Sixty-eight percent of the Lacy School of Business undergraduate courses for Fall 2019 are being held in the new business building. There are 172 undergraduate business classes offered on My.Butler; 117 of those classes are located in the business building. Other business classes are being held online, in other campus buildings or the class location is listed as TBA.
Ally Ledder, senior marketing major, was looking forward to the new business building all summer long. But when Ledder checked her fall class schedule, she was discouraged to see that zero out her four business classes were going to be held in the new business building. Ledder even considered switching classes to take a class in the new building.
https://twitter.com/allyledder/status/1163883266367217664
“I think the people that donated the money to make this happen would be pretty disappointed to see that some of the business students don’t even get to enjoy it,” Ledder said. “But honestly I am pretty lighthearted about it, and I imagine that I’ll spend a lot of time there anyway.”
The new business building also houses several offices for Indiana businesses. In Suites 130 and 230, business organizations like Bright Blue and Central Indiana Small Business Development Center have found their new homes.
Another highlight of the new business building is the cafe, which partners with local food producers like Julian Coffee Roasters in Zionsville and Illinois Street Emporium. The business building cafe is also the only place on Butler’s campus that serves nitro brew.
Dean Standifird hopes the new building will grow the Lacy School of Business.
“One of the phrases I’ve been using is the foundation of this building is not concrete,” Standifird said. “It’s the decades of great work that’s happened in the Lacy School of Business that allows us to be here today.”
