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ALUMNI HOUSE EXPANDS

When construction started in late summer on a $5 million, 8,900-square-foot addition to the Alumni House, Case Western Reserve set in motion the next chapter in a project that has been more than two decades in the making.

Upon completion next summer, the complex will include the existing house as well as a new banquet hall and terrace. It will be called the Linsalata Alumni Center in honor of Frank and Jocelyne Linsalata, who contributed $4 million to the project and issued a successful challenge for alumni to contribute the remaining $1 million.

"We have waited a long time for this project to start, and I cannot wait to see the bricks and mortar climbing to form walls and then becoming a full building," said Frank Linsalata (CIT '63), chairman and founder of Linsalata Capital Partners and member of the university's Board of Trustees since 1999. "I have looked at the renderings so often—just viewing the reality in itself will be an exceptional experience."

Envisioned as a home away from home for the university's more than 110,000 alumni, the center is designed to host indoor events for as many as 240 people, with the terrace accommodating an additional 100 guests for weddings, showers, birthday parties and other occasions.

Discussions regarding a campus home for alumni started in the late 1980s. When the Alumni House opened in 2007 in a renovated Georgian house on Juniper Road, requests poured in to use the space for events of all sizes.

The intensity of interest—and the building's limited ability to host gatherings larger than a few dozen guests—accelerated planning and fundraising for an addition, with alumni Don Foster (ADL '50) and Ted Castele, MD (ADL '51, MED '57), acting as the project's lead donors.

Sadly, Castele died in August. The new Foster-Castele Great Hall will serve as a living tribute to his achievements and contributions to the university.

A glass-enclosed hallway will connect the hall and the house.

"The current project strikes a wonderful balance between refinement and function, without ever tipping into being exorbitant or overdone," said Linsalata, also a former chair of the Board of Trustees and current chair of the university's $1.5 billion capital campaign, Forward Thinking. "This new space will provide unprecedented opportunities for alumni to gather on campus and also draw people new to our campus."

The project also will demonstrate the university's lifelong connection with its alumni, Linsalata added—a message he hopes especially resonates with prospective and current students. He envisions students will have even more opportunities to network with alumni at the center, which also will host a new bicycle program for alumni to ride around during campus visits.

In 2008, the Linsalatas contributed $3 million to the university—with two-thirds supporting the Tinkham Veale University Center and the remainder for student scholarships.

"You could say that giving back to our alumni completes the circle for Jocelyne and me," he said.

—DANIEL ROBISON