Marquette to break ground on new Law School Building May 22

Marquette University will celebrate the groundbreaking of a new Law School building during a ceremony Thursday, May 22. The Board of Trustees gave final approval for the project during its meeting Wednesday.

“We recognize the importance the Law School has always had in educating lawyers of the highest skill and ethical caliber,” said Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., president of Marquette University. “This new building will allow our first-rate faculty to deliver the very best in legal education to a new generation.”

The Law School building will be named Eckstein Hall in honor of the $51 million donation from Raymond A. and Katherine A. Eckstein, an alumni couple from Cassville, Wis., last May. Inside, the four-story structure will feature the Zilber Forum, recognizing the generosity of Milwaukee real estate developer Joseph Zilber, an alumnus who last August contributed $30 million, of which $5 million will be used toward construction of the building and $25 million will go to student scholarships. The project, estimated to cost $85 million in total, has also been supported by an early $1 million gift from the Bradley Foundation as well as several seven-figure gifts from anonymous donors. There is $19 million left to be raised.

Located at the southeast corner of the Marquette campus, at 11th Street and Clybourn Avenue, the 200,000 square foot building will include two courtrooms, classrooms, faculty office suites, library space with a two-story reading room, a conference center and a café.  Below the building will be a two-level, 170-space parking garage.

“As Milwaukee’s law school, we have a special obligation to prepare talented and tenacious legal advocates,” said Joseph D. Kearney, dean of Marquette University Law School. “Those Marquette lawyers will soon be educated in the best law school building in the country. And even beyond this historic mission, our new building will be the physical home to what is already becoming the place for all of Milwaukee, and indeed the larger region, to come to discuss the important issues of the day.”

The building was designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott Architects and Opus Architects & Engineers, with Opus North Corp. leading construction.  It is targeted for completion by fall 2010.

The groundbreaking ceremony on May 22 will begin at 1:15 p.m. Speakers will include Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson; Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, chief judge of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Seventh Circuit; and Natalie A. Black, senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary for the Kohler Co. and a member of the Marquette Board of Trustees.

NOTE: Renderings are available for download in jpeg format.

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