Leinweber Computer Science Building — University of Michigan

The Leinweber Computer Science and Information Building gives the University of Michigan’s fast-growing computing programs 163,000 square feet of new room on North Campus. The $145 million building opened in summer 2025 as the new home for the School of Information and expansion space for the Computer Science and Engineering division. Pelli Clarke & Partners designed it with Integrated Design Solutions as architect of record, and Walbridge ran construction.

Project Scope
The building holds teaching labs, research space, and collaboration areas wrapped around daylit common zones meant to pull students from both programs into the same rooms. Its headline system is a geothermal field that heats and cools the building as a working demonstration project, part of the university’s push toward carbon neutrality. The design targets LEED Gold. Integrated Design Solutions handled MEP engineering along with the architect-of-record role, and SDI served as structural engineer. Detroit-based Ideal Contracting worked the steel package. Crews broke ground in November 2022 and finished ahead of the fall 2025 term.

Why It Matters
Michigan’s computer science enrollment has climbed hard over the past decade, and the department had outgrown the nearby Beyster Building. Leinweber isn’t just more square footage. It’s a bet that on-campus geothermal can carry a large academic building through Michigan winters and hot summers without fossil heat. If the system performs, it gives the university a template for the rest of North Campus. The building also keeps a nationally ranked program competitive for faculty and graduate students who compare lab space as closely as they compare research budgets. A gift-and-university package funded the $145 million cost, tied to a naming donation from the Leinweber family. For a public university balancing enrollment growth against climate goals, it’s a useful test of whether both can move at once.

Project Team & Details