Having kicked off $500 million in building projects from 2009 to 2013, University of Notre Dame was only warming up for a bigger game day. The 1,250-acre Indiana school picked up the pace in 2014 with more than $700 million in projects under design or construction, including the $400-million, 750,000-sq-ft Campus Crossroads, a trio of academic and student life facilities that will adjoin 85-year-old Notre Dame Stadium. Crossroads, which also involves stadium enhancements, marks the largest project ever undertaken by the 173-year-old school.
Timing has been everything, says university architect Doug Marsh, who notes a recent succession of endowments prompted Notre Dame, a private, Catholic institution, to "stack" projects that otherwise might have been executed over a period of years. In addition to Crossroads, which broke ground in November, construction has begun on $88-million McCourtney Hall, an interdisciplinary research center, while plans are underway for a new $39.6-million school of architecture, a pair of $40-million residence halls and the $80-million Jenkins and Nanovic Halls, a 175,000-sq-ft complex dedicated to social science and international studies.