Law school undergoes $40m make-over

Real Estate Weekly, May 12, 2004

Over the course of the past five years, Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law has undergone a $40 million dollar capital improvement plan designed to bring students and faculty together in an intellectual and social venue while providing more classroom and student space.

The recent renovation has included the addition of a residence hall, several thousand square feet for larger and improved library, offices, and clinic spaces as well as a new and larger lobby, Moot Court Room, and new ground-floor seminar room. In addition, older classrooms have been renovated with new desks and chairs and outlets for laptop use.

Each of the Law School's entire 11 stories has received some sort of upgrade, expansion, facelift or full renovation. Technological enhancements and new heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems have also been added. In addition, the acquisition in the late 1990s of two full floors of 55 Fifth Avenue and of nearly 100 apartments at 15 East 11th Street has greatly expanded the Cardozo campus. Students from across the country can now attend Cardozo without having to deal with New York's residential housing maze.

Guided by Sheldon Solow, a New York City developer and builder, Cardozo and Yeshiva University hired the internationally know architectural firm of Davis Brody Bond to design the ground floor.

While restoring the building's original neoclassical facade, the firm also saw expansion of the lobby, the addition of a new seminar room, and the design and building of the new Jacob Burns Moot Court Room. This expansion was made possible with the reacquisition of several thousand square feet of space at the building's southern end.

The centerpiece of the 16,000-square-foot ground floor is the round wood and limestone-clad Moot Court Room. Using warm wood and bronze accents, the architects created a 250-seat room that exceeds 4,000 feet- double the size of the Law School's original Moot Court Room.

It also boasts a limestone outer wall that will be engraved this summer with the School's name and contains state-of-the-art audiovisual enhancements and a production studio.

The renovations included the expansion of the Dr. Rebecca and Lillian Chutick Law Library from three to four floors. A true showpiece, architects replicated the rounded designs of the lobby for the 7th floor. The main floor's vaulted ceilings are accented by geometric forms that reappear in the warm wood paneling gracing the reading rooms, the circulation and reserve desks, and the book shelves. In the bright, inviting alcove near the library's grand circular entrance, wood and glass cases display recent faculty publications. An ultra-modern computer lab with more than 30 new Internet-connected work stations completes the picture.

Cardozo was founded in 1976 and has graduated 7,500 men and women since 1979.