Darden’s Faculty Nerve Center Finally Gets Its Turn

For decades, the Faculty Office Building at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business has been the place students go when the case discussion ends but the real conversation begins. It is where office hours stretch long past closing time, research ideas are traded in the hallway and careers are rerouted over an impromptu cup of coffee.

It is also, by modern business school standards, a workhorse: solid, familiar and overdue for a rethink.

That rethink is now coming into focus. Darden has secured the philanthropic commitments needed to launch a comprehensive renovation of the Faculty Office Building, a project that will reshape one of the School’s most important academic homes into a brighter, more connected hub for faculty and students.

With commitments now in place to reach the $15 million fundraising threshold required to begin work, Darden is moving forward with design and approvals for construction to start in summer 2027. Work will be phased over multiple summers to minimize disruption to classes and daily activity on North Grounds.

The project is supported by a group of alumni and friends, including David M. LaCross (MBA ’78) and Kathleen O. LaCross; Steven C. Voorhees (MBA ’80) and Celia Voorhees; James A. Cooper (MBA ’84) and Stacy Cooper; Robert W. Smith (MBA ’87) and Teresa Smith; Bruce R. Thompson (MBA ’90); the Altec/Styslinger Foundation; J. Byrne Murphy (MBA ’86) and Pamela Murphy; Adair Newhall (MBA ’09) and Kathryn Newhall; and an anonymous donor.

“These gifts are an extraordinary vote of confidence in who we are and where we are headed,” says Interim Dean Mike Lenox. “For years, our faculty have been competing on a global stage from a building that looks almost exactly as it did when many of our alumni were students. This renovation is about giving their work a home that matches its ambition and the experience our students expect from one of the world’s best business schools.”

An exterior rendering highlights the redesigned north entry and Winter Garden addition, strengthening pedestrian connections across the Darden Grounds.

A building that tells a story

Opened in 1998, when Darden moved to its current location, the Faculty Office Building was designed for a different era of academic life: more doors, fewer glass walls; more private offices, fewer shared spaces. Yet it has quietly shaped the culture that now defines the School — the open-door policy, the walkable scale, the ease with which students can find a professor after class.

The renovation will keep the building’s Jeffersonian character while changing the story it tells about how scholarship and teaching happen at Darden today.

Plans call for:

• An iconic Winter Garden rising within the building’s north courtyard — a light-filled, two-story space with flexible seating that will function as a living room for faculty, students and visitors.
• A re-oriented north entry and redesigned interior stair, creating a more intuitive flow from nearby parking and the new on-Grounds student housing into the center of the academic precinct.
• A southeast entry and patio that connect the building to the planned Darden Park, offering outdoor gathering space and another welcoming front door for the community.
• A new large seminar room and multiple conference rooms and collaboration zones designed for cross-disciplinary work and engagement with visiting scholars, alumni and partners.
• Enhanced wellness and support spaces, including wellness and mothers’ rooms and updated single-user restrooms.
• Updated finishes, lighting and transparency throughout, bringing more natural light into corridors and common areas and allowing activity in shared spaces to serve as a visible expression of Darden’s teaching and research culture.

“We heard loud and clear that faculty and students wanted more places to bump into each other, share ideas spontaneously and build relationships outside the classroom,” Lenox says. “The Winter Garden, new entries and collaboration spaces are all about making those moments easier, more frequent and more inclusive.”

Another view of the proposed Winter Garden highlights flexible seating and natural light designed to support informal gathering and collaboration.

An inflection point on North Grounds

The Faculty Office Building renovation is part of a broader physical and strategic inflection point for UVA Darden.

In one direction, The Forum Hotel and the Tahija Arboretum & LaCross Botanical Gardens have turned a once-ignored hillside and drainage ditch into a destination for the University and Charlottesville communities. In the other, a new on-Grounds student housing complex is rising, promising to change how future generations live and learn at Darden. The Faculty Office Building leads to both — literally and symbolically.

Together, these projects are central to the School’s Darden 2026 Launchpad strategy, which calls for strengthening community, expanding lifelong learning and positioning Darden to be recognized among the very top business schools in the world.

“In many ways, this renovation is a launch pad,” Lenox says. “If you ask leaders in business and higher education to name the top business schools, we want ‘and Darden’ to be part of that instinctive answer. Investing in world-class faculty space is one of the ways we make that aspiration real — by giving our people the tools and environment they need to do their very best work.”

A rendering shows a reimagined interior of the Faculty Office Building, designed to encourage movement, informal interaction and collaboration across floors.

Naming the places where ideas begin

While Darden has reached the fundraising milestone required to move the project into the construction phase, significant naming opportunities remain for donors who wish to leave a mark in the heart of the School’s academic life.

Spaces available include the Faculty Office Building itself, faculty pavilions with outdoor porches, primary entries and lounges, seminar and conference rooms, collaboration and work lounges, and individual faculty and staff offices.

“These spaces will be where future generations of Darden students meet the professors who change their lives,” Lenox says. “It’s a rare chance to connect a name with the everyday work of teaching, research and mentoring that defines this place.”

The proposed southeast entry and patio will create a new front door for the Faculty Office Building, linking it to planned outdoor and residential spaces.

What happens next

Darden is advancing design work with architecture firm Goody Clancy and anticipates formal approvals from the UVA Board of Visitors and other University review bodies as the project moves toward an expected construction start in summer 2027.

Renovation phases will be timed to concentrate the most disruptive work in summer months while classes are not in session, with lighter updates occurring during the academic year.

Throughout construction, the Faculty Office Building will remain in use, continuing to house Darden faculty whose teaching and scholarship underpin the School’s global reputation for transformational business education.

“For all the renderings and plans, at its core this project is about people,” Lenox says. “It’s about creating spaces where faculty can do path-breaking research, where students can find the mentor who changes their trajectory and where alumni feel at home when they come back to Grounds. That’s what our donors are investing in, and we’re incredibly grateful.”

Be part of what comes next

As design advances and approvals move forward, Darden welcomes alumni and friends who wish to help shape this next chapter on North Grounds.

To learn more about the Faculty Office Building renovation or to discuss naming opportunities, please contact Samantha Hartog, senior associate vice president for advancement, at +1-434-981-4025 or HartogS@darden.virginia.edu.