Illinois Institute of Technology names architects for new building

BY SANDRA GUY Staff Reporter March 7, 2014 4:26PM

Updated: March 7, 2014 8:13PM

The Illinois Institute of Technology on Friday named architects John Ronan Architects and Shepley Bulfinch to design a new $40 million innovation and technology entrepreneurship institute on the South Side campus.

The institute will be the first new academic building to be built at IIT since 1968.

Shepley Bulfinch, headquartered in Boston, is known for designing the Art Institute of Chicago in 1892, when the firm was known as Shepley Rutan & Coolidge.

John Ronan Architects designed the Gary Comer Youth Center and the Poetry Foundation.

To help fund the initiative, IIT has received a $10 million challenge gift from alumnus Ed and Carol Kaplan.

Ed Kaplan co-founded Zebra Technologies, a Lincolnshire-based maker of bar-code label printers.

IIT intends to match that grant. The Kaplans had previously given $1 million toward the institutions creation. Groundbreaking is expected to take place in late 2015 and could open as early as 2017.

The center will be focused on learning how to create things, and will work with IITs technology park to commercialize those things, said IIT President John L. Anderson at a news conference at the tech park on Friday.

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Illinois Institute of Technology names architects for new building