DETROIT (June 2, 1999) - Wayne State University officials today broke ground on a new state-of- the-art learning facility for the University's Law School. Scheduled to open in time for classes in 2000, the $15.6 million project includes a new building, demolition of part of the existing facility and renovation of a portion of the existing facility.

The new Law School facility will be a new gateway to the Wayne State University campus. A 50,000-foot, three story building will replace a "temporary" Law School annex built in 1970. Renovations will rehabilitate outdated facilities in the Law School library and classroom building, constructed in 1966. The project will be funded by the University, a bond issue and a capital campaign coordinated by the Law School. It will be the School's sixth facility since its founding in 1927.

"This is a great law school with a history of excellence," said Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid. "A school of this caliber deserves to have a facility that will rank among the nation's best. With this new project, we are proud to say that in the 21st Century, our law students will have an exceptional place to learn."

Joan Mahoney, Dean of the Law School said, "The Law School's programs and library have stretched the present building to its capacity. Completion of this project will enable the Law School to fulfill its mission to become one of the finest public urban law schools in the nation."

The new building will feature an innovative 250-seat auditorium, suited for lectures and sessions of various courts that have sat on the Wayne State Campus. It will also feature a new moot courtroom, a multi-media distance learning classroom, new seminar rooms, new offices for student organizations and student services, gathering spaces for students and alumni and additional faculty offices. The renovation of the existing building will greatly enlarge the capacity of the law library - already the nation's 215' largest public law library - and improve its technological capabilities.

The Law School's "Campaign For The 21st' Century" plans to raise $10 million for the project. Eugene Driker, of the Detroit law firm Barris, Sott, Denn and Driker, is chairing the Campaign. Driker is a 1961 graduate of the School.

"Alumni support for the project is both enthusiastic and unprecedented," said Dean Mahoney. The School has received more than $4.8 million to the building campaign in just the last six months. Those funds have come from just 31 donors, nearly all alumni, amounting to an average of more than $154,000 per pledge. The Law School has also received two pledges of more than $1 million for its endowment.

The Wayne State University Law School boasts 9300 alumni, of whom about 80 percent reside in Michigan. The others are located in nearly every state and in 15 foreign countries.

The Law-School enrolls approximately 725 day and evening students in its J.D. program, of whom about 75 percent are from Metropolitan Detroit. The School is now widely regarded as the principal law school for training Michigan lawyers.

Depictions of the new building, as well as a short computer-generated video tour, are available on the Law School Web site.