When students from The Chicago School’s Dallas Campus return from Winter Break, they’ll have a new building to call home.
“I can foresee this being a space where if somebody’s in town, people will want to show off where their school is. They’ll feel proud and want to do that because it’s a space that we can do that in,” Dallas Campus Director LaToya Banks says. “The students, staff, and faculty can feel very proud, so I think it’s going to be great for the campus as a whole and bring just a different level of excitement and higher morale at a new space.”
The brand-new, five-story building is located at 6275 W. Plano Parkway and is part of the International Business Park, a 300-acre office park.
Inside the building, Brian La Belle, the executive director of Facilities and Real Estate Planning, has been hard at work ensuring it has something to benefit everyone.
“The old facility was almost too big for us. It also didn’t have spaces that were conducive to what our students and our employees needed,” La Belle says. “The number of offices for faculty was insufficient, the technology and classrooms were dated, and there weren’t a lot of student study spaces.”
The new campus is also surrounded by various restaurants, something Banks says the old campus in Richardson, Texas, lacked.
Part of the issue, according to Banks, is that Richardson isn’t conveniently walkable. “You have to drive, and there’s not high public transportation either,” Banks says.
The new campus solves these problems, they say.
What once would be a 10-minute trip to grab lunch will now become much shorter because there are different options nearby, including a mall, a Costco and a grab-and-go mini-market.
For Banks, she hopes that it adds attraction to the campus.
“When you step back and look at it, it’s like ‘OK, I can work here like I want to be a part of this building because it looks good like even from the outside,’” Banks says.
On the inside, La Belle says, the campus will have places for everyone.
For students, La Belle says study spaces became a must-have after seeing their popularity at The Chicago School’s Los Angeles Campus.
For the faculty, there will also be areas on campus that cater to their style, whether they want to work in an office or rest their feet on an ottoman, Banks said.
By accomplishing these goals, Banks says she believes the changes to the Dallas Campus will be a boost to morale.
“It’s a more open, welcoming environment. Any place where you can go in and feel welcomed in that space takes your morale and feeling of ease and comfort to a whole different level that we’ll be able to see in this space versus what we see today,” she says.