In 2017, Drury University announced plans to revitalize the campus with their master plan. In Oct 2020, ground was broken on the first step of that plan: The C.H. “Chub” O’Reilly Enterprise Center. This is the “first new academic building in 20 years” built on the grounds. The name honors the late C.H. “Chub” O’Reilly and was unveiled at the groundbreaking ceremony.

“The $27 million building was paid for entirely by private gifts earmarked for the building” said Drury president Dr. Tim Cloyd at the groundbreaking ceremony. He went on to say that “$3.8 million in endowment gifts to support deferred maintenance” had also been donated. The project cost $30.8 million in total.

Drury’s master plan is designed to show what the campus will ultimately look like by 2042. Updates to the campus will be taking place “over the next 25 to 30 years” as stated by the university on their Campus Master Plan site.

The Enterprise Center will house programs currently situated in Burnham Hall as well as others. The Breech School of Business and the Department of Political Science and International Affairs will be the primary inhabitants. Also housed will be the Robert and Mary Cox Compass Center.

Dr. Juan Andrés Rodriguez-Nieto, an assistant professor of finance is looking forward to the completion of the new building in Fall 2022. “It will be a state-of-the-art building that will be a catalyst for cooperation between faculty, students and the community,” he said, referring to the centralization of the Your Drury Fusion program and other programs.

Drury Legacy and architecture major Helen Trice is also excited to see this new phase of the campus. “It’s like self-care, but for an entire community,” she said.” I think it’s totally overdue and this addition is going to have such a positive impact.” Trice is looking forward to any and all campus improvement and she said, “upon further review of Cooper Robertson, the firm that developed the master plan, they seem like a stand-up firm. They’ve put some real good into the world.”

Olivia Thompson, senior and strategic communication/Spanish major, also thinks the campus is “due for an upgrade to its physical space.” “However,” she said, “since Drury is a liberal arts school, the choice to erect the Enterprise Center as the first implementation of the master plan is an interesting move to me.” Thompson knows that donor wishes do influence construction but worries about the neglect of the arts buildings on campus.

According to the master plan released in 2017, there is set to be an expansion of the performing arts centers. The plan is unclear about replacing or updating buildings such as Pool Hall and Clara Thompson Hall.

Mariah Trujillo, an architecture major and senior, is not as excited about the building. “Why not create a new place for Breech at a lower cost scale and fix up some other buildings as well?”

Trujillo worries that the building has been over-glamorized and costs far too much for the amount of work she feels the campus needs. She asked, “Could we not find ways to repurpose or remodel buildings we already have?” Trujillo calls back to her time in on-campus housing. “I lived in a falling apart, mouse infested Smith Hall my freshman year,” she said. “The housing is in crisis.”

While the master plan does include updated and new campus housing and quads, there has been no date released for those projects.

Trujillo and Trice agree that the placement of the building is suitable—even wonderful. “There has always been a disconnect between the main campus and the few buildings placed south of Central St., and I think a lot of that had to do with the parking lot creating such a large gap,” said Trujillo.

Brandon Gammill, vice president of facilities operations, thinks the placement is just right. ”It will create almost a new center for Drury as it ties together newer more modern facilities like TSC, Hammons and Shewmaker with the older more historic facilities like Stone Chapel, and Burnham.”

Thompson argued that “as a commuter student, I’ve noticed a drastic difference in parking availability.” Her classes are centralized to Shewmaker Communication Center and the TSC. “It’s been a real challenge since the groundbreaking to find a spot to park before class. I end up leaving home 10-20 minutes earlier that I used to.” Thompson worries the problem may only grow as enrollment increases.

Trice suggests that Drury is making a push for more on-campus students with their interest in building more student housing and turning Drury Lane into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare. “Providing parking places in general is becoming a thing of the past,” she said. “Architecturally speaking, when you include parking in any design you are encouraging private vehicular transit.”

Gammill said that, “Parking is for sure a frustration, and it will be tough over the next 14-15 months. We do have other parking lots with a good amount of parking available, but they are a short walk away, and not as convenient which can be very frustrating at times. When we finish the Enterprise Center, we will have regained most of our parking back. While I’m working on this project, I’m also working on plans to hopefully add new parking as well as renovate old parking areas, so there is a lot going on behind the scenes and it is indeed part of our master plan.”

Dean of Hammons School of Architecture Bob Weddle also said, “The Master Plan favors the vitality of pedestrian activity and exterior spaces over parking, which was an objective widely shared among participants in the planning process. The university subsequently conducted a study that demonstrated we have ample parking elsewhere on campus, and there are plans to remove Warehouse 3 in order to create additional convenient parking for our [HSA] end of campus.”

Both agree that while parking may be an issue for the duration of construction, there will be updated parking to replace the lot. Gammill is especially excited about the updating of existing lots to create better navigation and flow of the campus.

Perhaps the biggest complaint, especially of those involved in Drury’s architecture program, is the lack of HSA student participation. “As a student who spends way too much time on this campus,” Trice felt obliged to say, “who better knows this campus then the very students that learn from it every day? I just find it odd, in a decorum kind of way, that a firm from St. Louis is responsible for the design.” She isn’t alone.

Trujillo said “What better way for students to learn then to work on real projects? Think about what that would do for the reputation for the school. A brand-new campus designed by its students would be a killer marketing point for Drury.” She worries that Drury may have overlooked some of the architecture department’s “distinguished designers, architects and theorists who could have contributed immensely.”

Both architecture students were frustrated that Drury did not look inward for assistance. “There is an entire NAAB-Accredited, a continuously highly ranked architecture program in the country, right across the street. These individuals would have jumped at the chance to have even a little part of a project on our very own campus,” said Trice.

“I don’t know about you, but if I heard that students and faculty at a university had helped design their new campus, I would come running to that program as an architecture student,” said Trujillo.

Weddle answered some of these concerns; “We expect Architecture majors to be thoughtful and critical about the built environment, so I am not surprised that this issue is of interest. We were proud to have had two of our students named to the Master Plan Task Force back in 2017.” This task force did organize a charrette which was open to the campus that same year. The details can be found on Drury’s master plan page.

While there are no current HSA students involved in the project, the firm chosen to lead the project, Cooper Robertson and their partner firm Trivers, which is located in St. Louis, employs several graduates of the prestigious architecture school here on campus. “The lead architect for Trivers on this project is 2002 Drury graduate Neil Chace.” Chace was also the “alumnus juror for the HSA year-end student-design awards last May,” said Weddle.

Drury’s master plan is “not a prescription for exactly what will go where. Instead, the plan establishes an ordered yet flexible framework which will guide all future planning and development.”

The buildings currently housing the programs to be moved will continue to be utilized in a variety of ways. Burnham Hall will continue to house the offices of the president, Academic Affairs, Marketing and Communication, Human Resources and the College of Continuing Professional Studies, said Gammill. There are no plans to move or do away with one of Drury’s cornerstone buildings.

Gammill believes the statement given on Drury’s site explains the need for the building best; “The Enterprise Center will enhance Drury’s ability to recruit, educate and support students. It will allow for new advances in our Breech School of Business, and back the full launch of the transformational Your Drury Fusion curriculum. Once constructed, the Enterprise Center will be a campus hub at which deep, interdisciplinary learning inspires generations of Drury students to achieve their full potential.”