University of Chicago Booth School of Business (London campus)

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business has announced the completion of a new state-of-the-art campus in Barts Square, London. Currie & Brown provided cost and project management services on the project, creating a new base of operations for the central-London school, the European home for its renowned executive MBA programme.

Chicago Booth has relocated its London campus from Woolgate Exchange to One Bartholomew Close, near St Paul’s Cathedral. The new building is designed to expand engagement with the students, alumni, corporations and the general public. Construction of the new fit-out space in a newly completed office building will expand the Chicago Booth London footprint from 27,500ft² to 43,000ft².

Easily accessible from several underground and overground stations, the campus has a private ground-level entrance and is split over three floors to provide programme/event space, administrative spaces and two executive-style tiered classrooms, accessed by an internal staggered staircase.

Our role

Currie & Brown provided cost and project management services to the university on the Cat B fit-out of the building from RIBA stage 3 through to project handover, close-out and in use.

The services we provided include the following:

• Cost planning
• Value engineering
• Procurement advice
• Two-stage tender process
• Benchmarking
• Contract compilation
• Risk management
• Change management
• Contract administration
• Stakeholder management
• Post-contract cost reporting
• Cashflow management
• Valuations
• Final account agreement

Added value

When Currie & Brown was appointed, the project was underway but behind programme, with a challenging deadline and budget to be met. Currie & Brown worked closely with the client to create a new procurement strategy and develop a recovery plan to provide a clear and achievable programme. In parallel, the design was interrogated and challenged in order to value engineer the costs back within budget. The two-stage procurement strategy allowed construction to start on site quickly, and practical completion was achieved in March 2020.

Currie & Brown implemented a robust change management process to ensure that the changes required by the project’s many stakeholders could be incorporated at the right cost and without any negative impact on the programme.