Lehigh Business Building Expansion

Expanding Our Footprint

As part of Lehigh's Path to Prominence initiative to add more students and scholars and spark innovation, the College of Business has started construction on a 74,000-square-foot building catty-corner to the Rauch Business Center. (Scroll down to watch the live construction cameras!)

"We are poised to take off as one of the nation's leading business schools," said Georgette Chapman Phillips, the Kevin L. and Lisa A. Clayton Dean of the College of Business. "To do that, we must compete for the best students and the best faculty. This new building will not only allow us to expand, it will give us the opportunity to teach in innovative and technologically sophisticated classrooms. It will facilitate faculty/student and, just as importantly, student/student learning interactions."

Plans for the building have been underway for over five years.

Timeline

Building construction got final approval from the Board of Trustees in February 2020. The pandemic pushed plans back one year. Current schedule is as follows:

• April 1, 2021 – Site turned over to construction crew
• May 2021 – Demolition and site clean-up
• June 2021 – Begin construction
• August 2022 – Building occupancy

New Facilities

The new building will accommodate 16 additional teaching space for both the undergraduate and graduate programs, all equipped for remote and hybrid learning.

There will also an expanded Financial Services Lab, a Data Analytics Lab and a Rauch Media and Communications Lab to support oral, written and digital communications classes.

A Behavioral Lab will allow for observation and subject interviews, and there will be business innovation/incubator space for entrepreneurial exploration. The building also will be the new home of the Vistex Institute for Executive Learning and Research.

By the Numbers

Since the opening of Rauch in 1991, the College of Business has had: