Steel Framework for New Building Topped Out

For months now, local ironworkers have been constructing the steel framework that will support Drexel LeBow’s new home. In keeping with a buildings trade tradition, Drexel and Keating Building Co. held a topping out ceremony on Aug. 21, placing the final steel beam in place. Drexel faculty, staff, board members, students and alumni gathered alongside construction workers to sign the final beam, and they toasted with champagne as they watched a crane hoist it to its new home.

Watch a video of the beam being hoisted atop the building

President John Fry recognized the contributions of everyone who helped make the new building possible, especially Bennett S. LeBow, the university’s largest benefactor, whose $45 million gift made the project possible.

“This center will be a cornerstone of the Innovation Neighborhood we plan to build right here in University City,” Fry said.  “That’s a neighborhood where students, professors and researchers all live and work, sharing ideas and collaborating on solutions to society’s challenges.”

In his remarks, Interim Dean Frank Linnehan, Ph.D., drew a parallel between the process of constructing a building and what this building will be used for: “Pursuing an education is in itself an act of perpetual self-construction. And in little more than one year from today, professors, students and business leaders will convene in this tower to advance knowledge and apply its lessons to the work of the real world.”

He continued, "Those of us who work in the college have been dispersed from a tired Matheson Hall to locations from one end of the campus to the other. Being reunited next year in this modern facility with the latest in educational technologies at our fingertips will be a dream come true and a vision realized: a vision of Drexel’s LeBow College as a pre-eminent thought leader in the worlds of business, finance and economics."

"Soon, we’ll start to see the spaces inside the building take shape," added Drexel University Board Chairman Richard A. Greenawalt. "In those spaces, generations of future business leaders will begin their journey."

The building is scheduled for completion in fall 2013. For more information on the new LeBow College of Business building, visit www.buildinglebow.com.