Tippie College of Business Expansion and Gilmore Hall Renovation, University of Iowa

The Tippie College of Business expansion at the University of Iowa starts with a 1910 building most students walk past on the way to the Pentacrest. Gilmore Hall, the university’s first dedicated law building, is being gutted and restored, then tied to the early-1990s Pappajohn Business Building by a glass atrium. The university held its groundbreaking on Sept. 18, 2026.

Project Scope

Neumann Monson Architects of Iowa City designed it, and the university awarded the construction contract to McComas-Lacina Construction, also based in Iowa City. The university’s facilities office lists a $42.8 million budget and substantial completion on Aug. 14, 2028. Work runs in five continuous phases.

Square footage depends on who’s counting. The facilities office lists 75,991 square feet. The college breaks it out as about 29,230 in Gilmore, 7,900 of Pappajohn renovation and 30,500 in the atrium connector, while its own announcements have said 65,000 and “more than 70,000.”

Gilmore gets new windows, mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and insulation. The limestone and marble exterior will be restored. Fire escapes and an elevator lobby that were bolted onto the outside over the years move inside, putting the original silhouette back, and skylights the building had as a law school in the 1920s return.

The program is aimed at how business schools teach now. There’s a 150-seat event space, a 90-seat classroom, two active learning rooms for 40 to 60 students, labs for analytics, AI, sales and communications, an entrepreneurship hub and an executive board room overlooking the Pentacrest. Outside, eight trees come out and 20 tulip trees go in.

Why It Matters

Pappajohn opened for about 1,600 students. Tippie enrolled about 4,700 in 2025 and expects more than 5,000 undergraduates within a few years. The easy answer would have been a new building somewhere else. Reusing Gilmore keeps the college on the Pentacrest and puts a building from the Olmsted firm’s campus plan at the center of it.

Funding comes from private gifts, college reserves and university capital improvement money, and the college says there’s no tuition increase or new fee attached. The Tippie family gave $20 million. One thing the university hasn’t explained: the college’s fundraising target was $60 million, well above the $42.8 million construction budget. That gap may just be soft costs, furnishings and technology, but it’s worth a question when the bills come in.

Both the architect and the builder are Iowa City firms working a few blocks from their offices. They’ll need that familiarity, because getting a 116-year-old masonry shell to perform like a new building is the hard part.

Project Team & Details