March 29, 2005

Cooley Center 3rd & 4th Floors are Breaking Ground

Construction will begin this spring on the third and fourth floors of the Cooley Center, part of The Thomas M. Cooley Law School campus in downtown Lansing. The floors, currently vacant, will be used for classrooms and offices.

The architect for the project is MayotteJacob, the same firm that designed the rest of the Cooley Center, including the law school's state-of-the-art courtroom complex, and Cooley's Brennan Law Library. The general contractor will be announced in April after Cooley administrators receive the proposals from the firms invited to bid on the project.

3rd Floor Plan (image) | 4th Floor Plan (image)

There will be a Groundbreaking Ceremony on Thursday, April 14 at 10 a.m. on the third floor of the Cooley Center, 300 S. Capitol Ave. Lansing, Mich. Cooley Law School President Don LeDuc, Lansing Mayor Tony Benavides, and the winning contractors will be be speaking. Tours and refreshments will be offered after the ceremony.

Cooley's Lansing operations are housed in the Cooley Center at 300 S. Capitol, the Brennan Law Library a couple blocks away at South Washington Avenue and Kalamazoo, and in the Temple Building at 217 S. Capitol. Upon completion of Cooley Center's third and fourth floors, most operations now in the Temple Building will relocate to the Cooley Center.

William Schoettle, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Finance for Cooley, said no decisions have been made about future uses for the Temple Building. Prior to Cooley's purchase of the building in the 1970s, the structure was owned by the Masonic Temple Association.

"Cooley will continue to use the Temple Building for a variety of functions in the near future. The long-range plans are not determined. Many options are being reviewed," he stated.

Completion of the $4.5 million third and fourth floors project is targeted for November 2005. The completed floors will include three large classrooms, each with 120 seats, nine smaller classrooms able to accommodate from 20 to 35 students, two distance education classrooms, student organization offices, adjunct faculty offices, and new Career Services offices.

"This will complete the next phase of the master plan," Schoettle said.

The first phase of the Cooley Center (floors 1-2 and 6-10) was completed in December 1999. The second phase of the building plan was the construction of the state-of-the-art courtroom complex on the fifth floor, officially opened for students in February 2004.

The construction not only relocates several Cooley operations, it gives the law school an opportunity to improve them.

"These classrooms will have the latest and greatest technology," noted RJ Brennan, Director of Facilities.

In other construction news, Cooley, which owns the Town Center Building at 333 Capitol Ave., will use some renovated space in the Town Center for four temporary classrooms. Schoettle said he anticipated using that space for about eight months. The furniture purchased for that location will move to the Cooley Center when the third and fourth floors are completed.

Over in Grand Rapids, at Cooley's campus at 111 Commerce, Schoettle said the construction for that campus is on track. Two tiered classrooms holding about 90 seats each, a student lounge area, a vending area, distance education rooms, and offices for student organizations, are all under construction. Schoettle said they anticipated that the project will be completed in May of this year.

Founded in 1972, Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the country. Cooley has the second-largest enrollment in African-American students of any law school and the highest number of minorities overall in the United States. Cooley has three campuses across Michigan; its main campus in downtown Lansing, its downtown Grand Rapids/Western Michigan University campus in west Michigan, and its Rochester/Oakland University campus in southeast Michigan. In addition to the J.D. program, students at Cooley can also pursue an LL.M. in Taxation or in Intellectual Property. Find out more about Cooley Law School by visiting the Cooley Web site at www.cooley.edu.

For more information about the third and fourth floor Groundbreaking Ceremony, please contact the Cooley Communications Office at communications@cooley.edu or call Terry Carella, Director of Communications, at (517) 371-5140 ext. 2916 or Sharon Matchette, Deputy Director of Communications, at (517) 371-5140 ext. 2917.