Iona College Celebrates Groundbreaking for Business School Building
On Thursday, July 26, Iona College celebrated the official groundbreaking of its new business school building with a ceremony that included alumni, friends, officials from Iona College and the City of New Rochelle, and members of the local community.
From Left: Darrell P. Wheeler, Ph.D., MPH, ACSW, James Hynes '69, '01H, William B. Lamb, Ph.D, Robert V. LaPenta '67, '00H, President Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D., New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, Br. Kevin M. Griffith, CFC, ’83, and Hannah McGowan '20.
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – Iona University celebrated the official groundbreaking of its new business school building with a ceremony that included alumnus and Board of Trustees member Robert V. LaPenta '67, '00H, officials from Iona University and the City of New Rochelle, and members of the local community. Remarks were delivered by Mr. LaPenta, Iona School of Business Dean William B. Lamb, Ph.D., President Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D. and Student Government Association President Hannah McGowan '20, as well as New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson.
See a time-lapse video feed of the School of Business construction
The new business school building, upon expected completion in Spring 2020, will dramatically impact Iona by more than doubling the current academic space of the facility for use by faculty and students from both the School of Business and School of Arts & Science. High-tech learning spaces will include state-of-the-art classrooms and computer labs, a central atrium event space, case study and meeting rooms, faculty offices, a lecture hall, a business career center, an expanded trading floor classroom, and a media suite.
The new building is made possible through Robert LaPenta’s generous $15 million gift announced in November 2015, to which he later added $2.5 million through a matching gift challenge, increasing his total donation to $17.5 million, the largest gift in the institution’s almost 80-year history. To date, more than 50 donors have made contributions to the project through the matching challenge.
"Today is a truly historic day for Iona’s School of Business, which stands stronger than ever following the groundbreaking,” said Dean Lamb. "We are deeply committed to continuous improvement, service to students, and community impact, and we are excited for 2020, when we will have a state-of-the-art space and a dramatically heightened student experience.”
“We have many people to thank for making this beautiful day a reality – Mr. LaPenta, who has generously invested in our future, and officials and community members alike in New Rochelle have also played a key role in securing a prosperous tomorrow,” said President Nyre. “To be able to offer our students the best faculty in their fields, complemented by state-of-the-art facilities, fits the vision of what we seek to accomplish here at Iona through our new business school building.”
Iona University is working with the architectural design and planning firm, Gensler, to design the physical spaces of the new facility, along with Langan Engineering, which is collaborating on the site plan and civil engineering work and JLL as the owner's representative.
ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona is widely recognized in prestigious rankings, including The Princeton Review’s 2025 national list of “The Best 390 Colleges” and The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse’s “2024 Best Colleges in America,” which ranked Iona at #66 in the nation overall and #8 in the nation among Catholic schools. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just six percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2023.” Iona also offers a fully online MBA program for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian. Connecting to its Irish heritage, the University also recently announced it is expanding abroad with a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.