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West Chester University’s College of Business and Public Management

The Business & Public Management Center looks to both the past, present, and future through mindful interpretation. A campus characterized by early and mid-century Collegiate Gothic, the exterior façade reflects upon this language of pointed arches and buttresses. The Church Street archway entrance to the building will be similar to the entrance way into Philips Memorial Hall, the noted college building on High Street.

The new five-story 90,000-square-foot academic building for West Chester University’s College of Business and Public Management opened to students and faculty in January 2017. There will be 21 classrooms on the first three floors. Also included in the building are lecture halls, student lounges, and meeting rooms. The top floors will have faculty and administrative offices for the 10 departments that make up the School of Business and Public Policy.

The building accommodates the departments of accounting, criminal justice, economics and finance, geography and planning, management, marketing, and public policy and administration, and houses the Cottrell Entrepreneurial Leadership Center, Center for GIS and Spatial Analysis, and Center for Social and Economic Policy Research. Two floors of faculty offices cap three floors of classrooms and meeting rooms. Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP, designed the facility to reflect the campus’s traditional Collegiate Gothic architecture and the present and future of academic teaching and learning. The streamlined traditional exterior combines with a contemporary interior to support collaboration, incorporate advanced technology, and establish hierarchy.

The labor group’s various affiliations challenged the day-to-day trade coordination. Heim Construction personnel managed the daily operations by maintaining a vigorous open communication stream. Everyone was briefed on current and future scheduling and expectations. Dealing with the trades as a team, minimized the obstacles that one would encounter in this type of environment.