EUGENE, Ore. -- (Oct. 23, 2013) – The Lillis Business Complex, one of the nation’s most environmentally friendly business school facilities and the first LEED certified building in the Eugene-Springfield area, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. The building opened Oct. 24, 2003, and has been an important facility at the University of Oregon since its first day.
Tim Rawlings of Salem hadn't been on the University of Oregon campus since he graduated 26 years ago, until he visited last spring with his son – then a prospective student and now a UO freshman.
"My son and I visited two departments – architecture and the Lundquist College of Business," Rawlings says. "That (the Lillis Business Complex) is what won him over. I just said, 'This is crazy nice.'
"After our visit, I just went, 'Wow, have things changed,'" he says. "And my son, who had visited three other schools, said, 'Dad, this is where I want to go.'"
The Lillis Business Complex, has contributed to a 67 percent increase in student population for the UO's Lundquist College of Business and to Lundquist's top-50 ranking among the nation's undergraduate business programs for five straight years by U.S. News & World Report.
"The Lillis Business Complex shapes how people perceive their future – that they can be successful and have a chance to practice it here," Kees de Kluyver, dean of the Lundquist College of Business, says in a recent story from the college's website.
The centerpiece of the business complex is Lillis Hall – an airy, 136,000-square-foot facility that was the Eugene-Springfield area's first building to achieve LEED silver certification for its sustainability features. Lillis replaced what was known as Commonwealth Hall in a $37.3 million project that was nearly 90 percent funded by private gifts – including $14 million from Gwen and Chuck Lillis.
Lillis is among 38 UO projects over just the past 10 years that are valued at a total of nearly $800 million and have resulted in just under 1.9 million square feet of new and renovated space on campus. A new wave of projects that will be staggered over the next year have a combined price tag of nearly $300 million more.
Chris Ramey, the UO's associate vice president for campus planning and real estate, says the current and recent upgrades to campus are unprecedented in both depth and breadth.
"Change and growth are certain in the next 25 years but not likely at the same levels as the last 25 – the largest building boom in campus history," Ramey says.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Brown, UO communications, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
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