New Law School Buildings Open Their Doors

Newly completed construction projects at two law schools highlight how new digs can be a big boon to an institution.

As reported in a July 2007 University Business news story, New York Law School actions got honored as "Most Ingenious Deal of the Year" by the Real Estate Board of New York. The deal involved selling the most marketable building of the institution's five-building complex, using those funds to increase the endowment, securing favorable fiscal ratings to obtain low-interest, tax-exempt bonds, and then constructing a new building over an underutilized campus parking lot. This allowed the school to stay in its Tribeca neighborhood, rather than moving downtown, as officials had originally wanted to do to fulfill space needs.

Located at 185 West Broadway, the new building is open for this fall. It's a glass-enclosed, 235,000-square-foot structure extending five stories aboveground—doubling the size of the campus. The new building features The Mendik Law Library, lounge areas with WiFi, and an open-air terrace with a view of Manhattan on the fifth floor.

Meanwhile, the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University (N.C.) is completing its move from the main university campus in rural Buies Creek to Raleigh, previously the largest state capital without a law school. Officials took an existing downtown office building and renovated it to create about 109,000 square feet on four floors, 40 percent more space than in the Buies Creek facility. The new location is within walking distance to state and federal courts, the General Assembly, government agencies, law firms, nonprofits, and corporations. Through summer 2009, total applications to Campbell Law were up 25 percent over the prior year while applications to law schools nationally were up just 6 percent.