Towson University Breaks Ground on New College of Business and Economics Building

Towson University broke ground this week on a new 120,000-square-foot building for its College of Business and Economics, a $95 million project that university officials say will finally give the school's largest college a facility that matches its enrollment growth.

The current business school building, constructed in the 1980s, has struggled to accommodate a student population that has nearly doubled over the past fifteen years, with several departments now operating out of temporary space in converted classrooms across campus. The new building will include dedicated trading-room simulation space for finance students, expanded space for the school's accounting and business analytics programs, and a new career services suite.

"Our enrollment has grown, but our building stayed the same size, and that's created real bottlenecks for students trying to get into required courses," said the dean of the College of Business and Economics. "This building is designed around how business education actually works now, with a lot more emphasis on data and analytics than when the old building went up."

The project is funded through a combination of state capital bond money, university reserves, and roughly $18 million in donations from alumni and regional employers, including several Baltimore-area financial services and insurance firms that recruit heavily from Towson's business programs.

University officials said the building is expected to open in about two years, with construction phased to avoid disrupting current class schedules. Towson's business school currently enrolls more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students, making it one of the largest business programs in the University System of Maryland.