Business School Receives $75 Million Donation From Entertainment Mogul

Upper West Side NY

22 October, 2021

11:39 AM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY IRIE SENTNER AND MICHAEL VONDRISKA OCTOBER 20, 2021 Hollywood notable David Geffen has donated $75 million to support Columbia Business School's January 2022 move to the Manhattanville campus, the latest in a series of large donations to fund the $6.3 billion expansion. The school's eight-story multi-use building, currently still under construction, will be named David Geffen Hall. Geffen, who has no previous public affiliation with the University, also donated $150 million to the School of Drama at Yale in 2021 and has donated over $450 million to UCLA. Yale's drama school and the School of Medicine at UCLA have both taken on Geffen's name in light of these gifts. Since University President Lee Bollinger announced the Manhattanville expansion in 2003, funding for the multibillion-dollar project has remained a perennial concern. As part of the expansion's first phase, the School of International and Public Affairs was slated to move from its current location in the International Affairs Building to the Manhattanville campus by 2016, a deadline that was later pushed to 2020. By 2019, no fundraising had occurred for the school's move, which delayed its progress indefinitely. The Business School's January move will bring an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 Columbia affiliates to the Manhattanville campus. Columbia's early attempts to buy up the future Manhattanville campus' 17 acres of land faced backlash from the local community. The campus' development began in 2009 with the purchase of over 6.8 million square feet of land in West Harlem, to be used for research and instruction. Over the course of the past 12 years, the University has been criticized for its use of eminent domain and displacement of local residents. Over three dozen businesses previously occupied the land now used for Columbia's Manhattanville campus. One local business owner, Anne Whitman, protested the expansion for over two years and compared her standoff with Columbia to the protests at Tiananmen Square. Although Whitman eventually reached an agreement with Columbia, the University drew further scrutiny after the state approved the use of eminent domain against two other Manhattanville property owners who refused to sell. A two-year court battle followed, ultimately resulting in the New York State Court of Appeals upholding the use of eminent domain and the sale of the land to Columbia. The court's decision was contingent on an evaluation of the area as "blighted" by the Empire State Development Corporation, the same entity that originally approved the use of eminent domain. The fraught relationship between the University and West Harlem has persisted through the construction of the Manhattanville campus. Businesses near the development have experienced a 30 percent decrease in revenue after being pushed from their prior locations to the 12th Avenue Corridor, an area that lacks street parking and residential units. The University also demolished a McDonald's on 125th Street, prompting outcry from low-income residents who relied on the restaurant as an affordable dining option. The University also employed Mamais Contracting Corp. and Trident General Contracting as contractors for Manhattanville, which have faced lawsuits for underpaying workers and racial discrimination, respectively. David Geffen Hall and its architectural counterpart Henry R. Kravis Hall are the final stages of phase one of the Manhattanville expansion. Once they are complete, the Business School is scheduled to vacate its current locations in Uris Hall and Warren Hall and move to Manhattanville in January 2022. The move will free up Uris Hall for use by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which has struggled with space shortages for years. According to Jean Howard, the George Delacorte professor in the humanities and a co-chair of the now-dissolved Uris Vision Committee, Uris will offer Arts and Sciences a number of new "common spaces used by everyone," along with a renovated library "devoted to digital teaching and learning and digital services." "This is long anticipated, and I am very happy that the plan has come out as it has," Howard said. "I think it will be a well-planned and well-used building that will make life better for students and faculty on the Morningside Campus. We haven't had new buildings for a long time, so this is really important to improve quality of life for students and faculty." The January 2022 move will mark the completion and opening of Manhattanville's fourth and fifth buildings, in addition to the already open Jerome L. Greene Science Center, Lenfest Center for the Arts, and The Forum. In total, 14 newly constructed buildings and three pre-existing buildings will make up the Manhattanville campus. This leaves less than nine years for the University to complete nine additional buildings, and raise the funds to do so, in order to meet the 2030 goal. Construction is currently active on David Geffen Hall, Henry R. Kravis Hall, and the outdoor space between them. There is also foundational work underway on 600 West 125th Street, a planned 34-story apartment building intended to house graduate students and faculty members. Previous plans for the new Business School facilities set the fundraising goal at $400 million, which had been met prior to Geffen's contribution through roughly 500 individual donations. More than three-quarters of the total funding has come from just six of those donations, including a $125 million pledge in 2010 from Henry Kravis, Business '69; a $25 million pledge in 2012 from Leon Cooperman, Business '67; a $25 million pledge in 2013 from Arthur Samberg, Business '67; a $15 million pledge in 2013 from Mario Gabelli, Business '67; and a $100 million pledge in 2013 from Ronald Perelman. All of these large donations have come from Business School alumni except for those of Geffen and Perelman. David Geffen Hall was originally slated to be named after Perelman, who is now the namesake of the permanent Perelman Scholarship Fund. "Quite simply, our move to Manhattanville would not have happened without the support of each and every philanthropic contribution from our generous community members," Costis Maglaras, the dean of Columbia Business School, wrote in a statement to Spectator. "All funds raised for the Business School's move to Manhattanville have gone toward the construction cost of the two new buildings." According to a Columbia Business School press release, the buildings "will double the School's current square footage" and provide "natural light-filled spaces designed to foster learning and collaboration." Modupe Akinola, an associate professor of management and the faculty director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School, stated that she is "very excited" by Geffen's donation and the move to Manhattanville more broadly. In Akinola's opinion, the Business School is limited by space in its current location on the Morningside campus, leading to a lack of connection between students and the broader community. The Manhattanville campus hopes to serve as a space where students, faculty, alumni, and neighborhood residents can come together to gather and exchange ideas. "That is very exciting, as someone who runs the center, to know that these huge auditoriums [will offer] the ability to actually get the community—whether it's the Columbia community, the [Columbia Business School] community, the Harlem community, the Manhattanville community—together in one space. [It's] really going to be transformational," Akinola said. The David Geffen Foundation could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. Deputy News Editor Irie Sentner can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @iriesentner. Staff writer Michael VonDriska can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Dylan Andres and Adam Frommer contributed reporting. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.