The time is near. The McIntire Expansion Project is getting ever closer to putting the finishing touches on the new buildings occupying the recently named Breeden Commerce Grounds section of UVA Grounds. And in April 2025, the doors to both structures will open to welcome the entire community to experience their innovative and welcoming spaces.
The renovation of historic Cobb Hall and the construction of its counterpart across the courtyard, student-centric Shumway Hall together create an interconnected hub, ushering in a new era for students, staff, and faculty alike, bridging the past and future on an important gateway to UVA’s storied Grounds.
A Renovated and Reimagined Cobb
Cobb Hall, one of many historic University of Virginia structures, stood as a cornerstone of the University’s burgeoning medical and chemistry programs in the early 20th century. Constructed in 1917 as a chemistry building, and expanded in 1930, its Jeffersonian Classical design, crafted by Walter Dabney Blair, symbolized a strategic move to position UVA as a leader in medical education.
Now, history meets the contemporary as Cobb Hall completes a transformative renovation, integrating state-of-the-art academic, meeting, and office spaces. This renewal demonstrates an enhancement of the McIntire School’s evolving ecosystem, delivering modern facilities to support dynamic learning, collaboration, and the needs of a growing, vibrant community.
As originally constructed, Cobb Hall had the same T-shaped form factor of Rouss Hall, the Lawn-facing front of McIntire’s Rouss & Robertson Halls. As part of the current Commerce expansion project, the rear extension and a late 1930s edition on the back of Cobb Hall was torn down to make room for Shumway Hall, which created a new usable courtyard between the two buildings, says Bryan Lewis, IT & Innovation Lecturer, CIO, and Assistant Dean for Operations.
The new plaza space is the outdoor bridge between the traditional and new McIntire spaces, connecting Rouss & Robertson Halls with Cobb Hall and Shumway Hall. Serving as an outdoor focal point for the entire Commerce complex, the former Ruppel Drive has been transformed into a park-like pedestrian area restricted to any vehicular traffic, housing outdoor study space and locations for food trucks during special events.
Bryan Lewis
“We also have an ADA-compliant path from south to north that comes all the way up to the buildings. An accessible route means that the grade (without ramps) has to be under 5%, and so it’s a little tricky, but it gave us the opportunity to build a garden-type environment,” Lewis says, noting that there will be a plethora of impressive landscaping on the plaza’s south side.
The crescent courtyard will provide an outdoor gathering space between Shumway and Cobb Halls. In better weather, this uniquely designed area on Grounds will serve as a location for casual meetings and study. In addition, the courtyard will be the site of many School events and provide supplemental space for major events held in the adjacent atrium.
“This courtyard will have a lot of seating, with high-top tables around the edge, where we put in power, because it’s one of the big student requests,” says Lewis. “But if you look at the back of Cobb, every window you’re looking at is a student space. It makes up a huge amount of our square footage, the entire 300 level of Cobb.” This point can’t be stressed enough, as student-focused areas are prevalent throughout both Cobb Hall and Shumway Hall.
The crescent courtyard will serve as an outdoor gathering space set between Shumway and Cobb Halls. This uniquely designed area on Grounds will serve as a location for casual meetings and study. In addition, the courtyard will be the site of many School events, and provide supplemental space for major events held in the adjacent atrium.
Whereas Rouss & Robertson Halls contain 16 group study rooms, Cobb and Shumway feature 25 group study spaces. While all buildings contain lounges, larger general study areas, and a courtyard, Rouss & Robertson Halls have no student-to-student peer advising or interview-specific rooms, whereas the new Student Success Center in Shumway Hall contains eight such spaces, essential areas for mentorship and career preparation.
“Within Cobb Hall there are two classrooms on the wings, our new style classrooms. Rouss & Robertson classrooms are traditional 1950s Harvard case method design, a tiered classroom centered on an instructor. The two new classrooms are a derivation called a cluster classroom,” Lewis explains. With only a single tier, the 54-seat cluster classrooms retain core aspects of a lecture hall but allow for easier collaboration among small groups.
Cobb Hall’s double-height solarium will offer cozy seating areas enhanced by the warmth of natural light around the perimeter.
Cobb Hall is crowned on its top floor with the solarium, a double-height lounge furnished with cozy modular seating areas enhanced by the warmth of natural light around the perimeter. A historical nod to its original 1917 space as a lecture hall for Medical School classes, a removed attic affords a majestic pitch to the ceiling, revealing a former skylight retrofitted with lighting to emulate changing daylight intensity. The lengthy room will often be used as a quiet study space, but with a flexible layout, it is ready to be reconfigured for hosting intimate events.
Down in Cobb’s lower level, between the Marketing & Communications and Design and Media office suites, a hallway acts as the conduit between Cobb Hall and Shumway Hall (“1917 connects to 2025,” says Lewis). When entering Shumway from Cobb, visitors arrive at the balcony overlooking the atrium, the new building’s centerpiece.
Shumway Hall’s atrium will be a unique architectural space on Grounds, boasting a full two stories with inviting natural lighting and a large traveling staircase.
Student-Centric Shumway Hall
Shumway Hall’s atrium presents a standout architectural space linked by a curving traveling staircase. Designed with ample room, it will serve as a community lounge by day and an ideal space for large gatherings such as alumni events, receptions, seated dinners, and more. By virtue of its spaciousness, it can accommodate nearly 400 audience members and will therefore function as the Comm School’s auditorium, capable of hosting signature events such as featured speakers, forums, and symposia.
Lewis notes that the calculated use of glass and passageways ensures that natural light reaches the very floor of the atrium. That openness in the design invites chance encounters and meet-ups at every turn. “It’s really hard to sneak through the building. It’s a very see-and-be-seen type of space,” he says, noting that feature plays into the student-centric focus of the two buildings.
The innovative grand classroom is completely configurable for small group work, large discussions, individual desks, and a variety of other arrangements. The classroom has a secondary use as a significant event space, and a partition allows for two distinct classroom spaces as necessary.
Adjacent to the atrium, the divisible flat-floor grand classroom promotes flexible student-centered learning. Like the majority of the spaces throughout Cobb and Shumway, it offers flexible seating and is configurable for small groups, large discussions, and a variety of other arrangements. It also contains a partition to divide the grand classroom into two distinct spaces as necessary. With its high ceilings, impressive sizing, and distinctive large-scale arched windows visible from Jefferson Park Avenue, the classroom also functions as a generous secondary event space for welcoming more than 200 people.
The Student Success Center will be home to all academic advising, student life, and career development operations.
The Student Success Center represents the nexus of all academic advising, student life, and career development operations, a welcome change from having offices spread over four floors at Rouss & Robertson Halls, encouraging better collaboration among staff and allowing for a smoother integration of services for students. The two-story space acts as a one-stop destination for advising and student organizations. From academic and study-abroad guidance to internship and career exploration and preparation, students will find all of the support they need in the Student Success Center. McIntire’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging initiatives will also have a home in this dynamic student-focused space.
At the main entry point to Shumway Hall, the arcade stands as a common area providing courtyard views from a spacious lobby with several seating niches and study areas along the upper level balcony. The space harkens back to more traditional University features, contrasting with the modernity of Shumway Hall.
Student wellness also features prominently in Shumway Hall, with a dedicated student wellness suite for contemplation, meditation, yoga, and self-care practice.
Functional, Flexible, and Reconfigurable
Overall, the focus of the new buildings are to be functional, flexible, and reconfigurable. As such, Lewis notes that the ROI on the spaces proves to be much higher than it was in Rouss & Robertson Halls “because we have much more potential usage for it.”
For instance, modular architectural wall partitions allow for office space that can be shifted into a seminar room or multiple open spaces. “One of the requests from our employers is they want to be in the flow of traffic,” says Lewis, pointing out a nano-wall that can be folded back to give accessibility to recruiters connecting with students.
In Cobb’s Marketing & Communications and Design and Media suites, movable wall systems deliver flexibility now and reimagined configurations in the future. In Shumway’s lower level, an innovation lab, a data lab, and a tech lab all boast modular wall surface systems. On the 300 and 400 levels of Shumway, and the 400 level of Cobb, spaces offer movable wall systems for hot desk and tech configurations to accommodate current and future additions, expansions, and transformations of office spaces for different needs such as extra classrooms, quick adoption of new technologies, and any other necessary changes in the years to come.
Additionally, the day/night functionality of the 300 and 400 levels in Shumway shift seamlessly from Student Success use during business hours (for activities such as peer advising, mock interviews, etc.) to student study spaces during evenings and weekends.
A particularly striking student meeting place, Shumway Hall’s commons lounge is an expansive multiuse space overlooking Jefferson Park Avenue. Featuring high and low seating and a large S-shaped sofa, the casual setting is also near to the highly anticipated café, a desired destination for the entire McIntire community.
Lewis says that the survey responses he sent during the pandemic about the café’s possible offerings were unprecedented. “I’ve never gotten a higher response rate than hearing what everyone wanted to see on the menu—by far. It’s not even close. People like to eat.”
The plan for the food service space will be for breakfast and lunch, Monday through Friday, and then a 24/7 grab-and-go scanning system for all-hour availability. The area contains multiple hot and cold food lockers for storage for delivery orders as well.
An Art Destination on Grounds
All told, there’s still so much more in store beyond the aforementioned innovative tech advancements, room functionality, and amenities, as the architecture will be further enlivened by a robust art program. Incorporating local and globally recognized artists, and mirroring McIntire’s local and global reach, the new buildings will highlight work by distinguished University alumni and faculty. The conceptual goal aims to enable cross-disciplinary participation and dialogue that prioritize access and inclusivity, a strategy reinforced with text panels and QR codes, allowing all to view original documentary video content and texts for guided tours and educational programming.
Some featured artists include retired UVA Studio Art faculty member Dean Dass and four of his “Fireflies/Flares” paintings along Shumway’s 100-level crescent corridor. One level up in the innovation gallery, a massive artwork by Philadelphia, PA-born, Accra, Ghana-raised Ato Ribeiro will run along the north wall. “He’s our commissioned artist for the largest piece in Shumway, which will span 80 feet—40 on each side of the doorway,” says Lewis of the piece composed of wooden assemblages of two-by-two-foot squares that he believes will be a destination for anyone who wants to take in important art at the University.
On Shumway’s third floor, the commons lounge will feature works by Uzo Njoku (A&S ’19), an MFA candidate at the New York Academy of Art. A self-described “artrepreneur,” Njoku has had had three major exhibitions in New York and Abu Dhabi and has partnered with brands including Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, Apple, Tommy Hilfiger, Harper Collins, Oprah Daily, and others.
“Her piece is designed to be licensed, so that at graduation we can roll up a print of it and hand it to students as a memory of their time at McIntire,” shares Lewis.
These works represent just some of the many incredible contributions that will beautify the new spaces and elevate the entire experience of spending time in any capacity at McIntire.
With completion and occupancy of the building slated for late spring of 2025, the entire McIntire community highly anticipates what’s about to come to the Commerce School’s newest home spaces within the Breeden Commerce Grounds on the southeast corner of UVA’s famed Lawn.
