Photo: Paige Brown
Park Manor Central
Since 2014, the Babson community has watched the building and renovation of the Park Manors in the heart of the Wellesley campus. Behind fenced-in areas, we’ve seen trucks haul, diggers excavate, and towering piles of dirt and debris appear and disappear. We’ve seen giant steel beams rise, and walls built, and bricks laid. We’ve seen cement poured, and shrubs planted, and grass rolled.
First to emerge in 2015 was Park Manor West, a home-away-from-home for first-year students, and its accompanying Leonard A. Schlesinger Innovation Center, which features an amphitheater, classrooms, and collaboration space for students working on businesses in “Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship.” Then in the summer of 2015, Park Manor South was renovated. With three floors, the refurbished building houses undergraduate students, providing them with lounges, a common kitchen, and a bike room. The Sophomore Leadership Community also calls this space home.
This fall, Park Manor Central, one of the larger residence halls on campus, reopened to show off its new look. Receiving a complete overhaul, the building now offers multisized living and learning spaces, including meeting rooms for student organizations and areas for recreation, dance, music performance, and Babson radio.
The outdoor Park Manor Quad made its debut in the fall as well, with large spans of green grass mowed to perfection, crisscrossing walkways, and Adirondack chairs for sitting and enjoying the sun. Nearby, the newly created Tomasso Quad, a beautifully landscaped space with paths and stepped benches, completed the outdoor renovations. Tomasso and Luksic halls, The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, and Park Manor West border this space.
“The transformation of the Park Manors Quad complex represents a tremendous investment in the quality of the shared living and learning spaces,” says Lawrence Ward, vice president for student affairs and dean of students. “I look forward to students using the space to its fullest potential.”—Donna Coco