Digging for Dollars

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The shovels are in the ground and the money is in the bank — sort of.

As donors and other dignitaries dug into the site where the new $85 million Marquette University Law School building will stand, roughly a quarter of the funding still needs to be secured.

Joseph D. Kearney, dean of the law school, said the fact that construction on the facility officially began on May 22, places certain emphasis, but not urgency, on raising the additional $19 million needed to finance the project.

But regardless of whether or not the entire project cost is collected by the time law students are scheduled to populate the facility in fall 2010, Kearney said the doors will be open.

“The hope and the intent is to raise it in two years,” said Kearney. “I do not want to leave the impression that if it is not raised in that window, that the university is going to pull the plug on the project.”

At the same time, Kearney said he did not expect the fundraising process to be a “slam dunk.”

“It is without question an ambitious timetable,” said Kearney.

He, Rev. Robert A. Wild, president of Marquette University, and Julie Tolan, vice-president of University Advancement, are the primary fundraisers.

In addition to reaching out to alumni and possibly local business for gifts, Kearney emphasized that he, along with others from Marquette, will look to local law firms for financial support.

Brigid O’Brien Miller, Director of Marquette University Communication, said discussion with firms, both big and small, is ongoing, although she did not say which firms have been contacted or which have already donated.

“At some of the larger firms, we are looking at workplace giving initiatives,” said Miller. “At the smaller firms, partners have made direct gifts on behalf of the firm.”

During the last year, the law school received two multi-million dollar gifts to jump start the project. Marquette alumni Joseph Zilber and Raymond A. and Katherine A. Eckstein donated $56 million combined for construction costs.

Zilber also donated an additional $25 million for student scholarships. The Bradley Foundation publicly contributed $1 million and “several” other anonymous seven-figure gifts have been given.

While nearly $66 million is pledged toward building the 200,000-square-foot building and 170-space underground parking garage, Kearney said that not all of that money is sitting in a bank waiting to be withdrawn.

“Some of the monies have already been received,” said Kearney. “But the standard approach with this campaign has been to ask people for pledges that are payable over a three- to five-year period.”

The Board of Trustees supported moving forward with the project at its May 7 meeting, which Kearney said would not have happened if board members felt insufficient money had been raised.

Admittedly, architectural or land issues could cause minor setbacks in construction, but Kearney does not expect any significant delays in the process. No buildings on the site at 11th Street and Clybourn Avenue had to be razed and Marquette owns the land.

“We’d be naive to think there won’t be some bumps in the road within the next two years, but we have, it seems to me, enough time given the two-year window,” said Kearney.

Barring a disaster scenario, the cost of the project will not exceed $85 million, according to Kearney.

“It’s not going to be a project in which we come back to donors and say that we were mistaken and it turns out, to do what we want to do, we need another $25 million,” said Kearney.