Harvard Business School Starts Up Construction

(Left to Right) Ratan Tata, Dean Nitin Nohria, President Drew Faust.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard Business School will start construction of two new projects in the Boston neighborhood of Allston after putting development plans on hold during the recession.

 

The college plans to spend $90 million to $100 million on a new executive education center, and $15 million to $20 million to convert a Harvard-owned building into an entrepreneurial lab.

 

HBS expects to begin building both projects next spring, pending approval from the City of Boston. The education center, which is slated to open in fall 2013, will be named Tata Hall in honor of a $50 million gift from Tata Trusts and Companies, a philanthropic arm of India-based multinational conglomerate Tata Group.

 

The gift is largest from a foreign donor HBS has received in its 102-year history. Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., attended an advancement program at HBS in 1975.

 

Tata Hall will serve as a combination academic and residential building. The lab, dubbed the Harvard Innovation Lab, will likely open next fall. The school will not use borrowed money on either project, according to HBS officials.

 

“We have begun to recover,” says Nitin Nohria, the business school’s dean. “So we’re willing to make prudent investments again.”

 

Last December, HBS halted construction on the $1.4 billion Harvard Allston Science Complex after the university’s investments took a hit. Work has not continued on that project.