As soon as students left for the summer, construction crews materialized in full force, doing a series of renovations on the Mabee Business Building.
Renovations in the Mabee added about 33 percent more space to the building across the board, which included increasing square footage of classrooms and offices, according to Bryan Burks, dean of the College of Business. Now the building is almost unrecognizable. The bricks disappeared, and the lobby is modern, white and light-filled.
Burks said the main goal of the renovations was to create more room for students. To achieve this, the builders added four new classrooms; expanded the student areas; installed the COBA café, where students and faculty can purchase breakfast, lunch and coffee and added a patio area. They also more than doubled the size of the lobby, added a center for alumni networking (a mini-career center for business majors) and created a finance trading lab and break-out rooms for students to meet together to study or work on projects. Moreover, they added a dozen offices and rewired the cable and computer connections.
The building, now 30 years old, had last been renovated in 2000.
“About every 30 years, it’s time to do a little more than just replace the carpet,” Burks said.
Along with aesthetic improvements, technological additions were made. A ticker will run through the lobby into the finance lab classroom, which will show various stock information.
“The goal is that when you walk in this lobby, you know this is a college of business,” Burks said.
Along with the ticker, the finance lab classroom will boast a 6-foot-tall touch screen interactive market wall. One of the latest technology tools in business education, the wall, made of four screens banded together, will display different markets.
“The things we are doing with the building have made it an attractive place for students,” Burks said.
Burks said that while most business schools across the nation are seeing a decrease in business majors, Harding has maintained its number of undergraduate business majors and is beginning to see some growth.
Burks said he hopes that undergraduate growth will reach 1,000 students in the next four to five years. Currently, the building hosts more than 1,000 students, including 700 to 800 undergraduate students, 250 graduate students and 75 non-traditional degree completion program students.
“I would have to say the Mabee got a huge face lift, the lighting is a lot better and the space is noticeably larger,” Marc Osorio, a senior finance major, said. “I am especially excited about the trading room, which is going to be dedicated mainly to finance classes, because it will add a hands-on dynamic experience.”
There were two phases to the construction of the building: construction of an addition, which started last September and finished about May 1, and renovation of the existing building, which began the day after graduation.
The renovations cost about $4 million.
