USC officially breaks ground for Fertitta Hall


On Friday, USC hosted the groundbreaking ceremony for Jill and Frank Fertitta Hall, a new building for the Marshall School of Business.

The hall, which is scheduled to be completed by May 2016, will be located at the southeast corner of the University Park campus at the intersection of Figueroa Street and Exposition Drive. It will open in time for classes beginning in the fall semester of 2016.

The Fertitta family donated the lead gift for the 102,000-square-foot, five-story building. The cost of the building has not been disclosed.

Frank Fertitta, a USC alumnus who graduated from Marshall in 1984, is the owner of Fertitta Entertainment, a company that develops and manages resorts and casinos, and of Station Casinos, the largest provider of gaming entertainment in Southern Nevada.

“He would end the meeting every single time with, ‘If you need something, call me.’ And that is a perfect example of the Trojan family,” Marshall Dean James Ellis said of Fertitta during his speech.

“When [President C. L.] Max [Nikias] and [Ellis] approached me with the possibility of helping out on a new building for undergraduate students, Jill and I immediately recognized the significance of the opportunity and what it would mean to the school,” Fertitta said during the ceremony.

Fertitta said that education was an important part of his philanthropic efforts.

“The two of us feel very fortunate to be able to make a gift to the Marshall School of Business that will help improve the educational environment and give the undergraduate students a home they can call their own.,” Fertitta said. “I think a world-class business school like USC deserves to have a world-class facility, and that’s what today is all about with the ground breaking.”

Fertitta Hall aims to expand and modernize Marshall’s student experience. The building is expected to increase the school’s undergraduate student capacity by nearly one-third.

According to the building’s information page on Marshall’s website, the hall will contain 20 classrooms and two lecture halls that can accomodate up to 149 students each. All the classrooms will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology including cameras that support interactive web conferencing with guest speakers.

“It’s fabulous, one of the things to walk around and see is all of these fabulous new buildings we have, and what Fertitta Hall is going to do for the business school is transformative,” Amy Ross, president of the Alumni Association Board of Governors, said at the end of the ceremony.

Sophia Doyle, a sophomore majoring in business administration, was among the Marshall students at the event. She gave a speech in praise of Fertitta Hall as a home to Marshall’s undergraduate students that will continue to foster a spirit of entrepreneurialism.

“I have an idea, [and] Fertitta Hall will give me a place to go and build it,” Doyle said.