by Stan Masters
The Marshall Building, which has been in construction since 2017, will be opened to students this coming January for the start of Lent Term 2022. This will follow a handover of the building from the main contractor, the fitting-out of the building with the required facilities, and the running of test events.
According to the School’s website, the building was designed by Dublin-based Grafton Architects after a competition was held to decide on the design. LSE appointed the Mace Group as the principal contractor in December 2018 to complete the building work. Mace began construction in early 2019, with the original site having been demolished in the previous year.
LSE purchased the site previously occupied by Cancer Research via competitive bidding, according to data obtained by the LSE Media Relations Team. The School began to prepare the project in 2015 and planning permission was granted by Westminster City Council in June 2017.
In an email statement, an LSE spokesperson said that the Marshall Building cost LSE £145 million, including statutory and professional fees. In comparison, the recently finished Centre Building, completed in June 2019, cost £125 million. However, the LSE spokesperson explained that the Marshall Building is the bigger of the two buildings and that the cost per square metre of the Marshall Building is “similar to the Centre Building”.
The Marshall Building will bring together three academic departments and three research centres that are currently located in five separate locations. Departments housed in the building will include the Department of Management, the Department of Accounting, and the Department of Finance, while the research centres housed include the Financial Markets Group and the Systemic Risk Centre.
The building will also provide additional teaching and social learning space and give extra-curricular space for students including a new sports hall, squash courts, a dynamic weights room and an arts rehearsal area.
The Marshall Building is one of a number of major development projects undertaken by LSE in recent years, whose infrastructure has one of the “highest utilisation rates” in the tertiary education sector, the LSE spokesperson said.
