King’s Plans Empire State Building Expansion

In light of their goal of admitting 290 students next fall, The King’s College is currently working on plans to not only renew their contract with the Empire State Building, but to increase the size of the King's campus in the ESB as well. According to Chief Executive Officer Duanne Moeller, the King’s staff has been working with the ESB for a year and a half to extend their 10-year lease and is now finalizing expansion plans. The College's current lease expires at the end of 2012.

“We’ve gone through several different variations of plans," Moeller said. "I think currently we have a plan that’s going to work, and we’re in the process of just finishing up different details in the lease."

The plan currently includes relocating the student lounge to the lower lobby and creating two classrooms, a conference room and a small lounge on the Concourse level.

The goal of the plans, of course, is to accommodate the ever-growing incoming class sizes the school anticipates.

“The new space we’re bringing on will give us a lot more seating capacity for students,” Moeller said. “So we’ll add two new classrooms plus we’ll redevelop some space like the City Room, and we’ve got some other things we’re working on to give us more medium-sized classrooms, [holding] about 30-35 students, which is what most of our major courses are.”

These changes will also affect how students enter the building, and will therefore “create a presence” specific to King’s in the ESB.

The school recently constructed an agreement with the ESB that would cause the students to come in through the 33rd Street side of the building, use the escalators, and create a presence right in the main lobby. “When you look down you’ll see The King’s College right there. That should be really neat,” Moeller said.

The renovations would also change the execution of large school events.

“We won’t have quite as much large event space, so we’re working on some strategies to maybe make agreements with local [venues] so that we could still have large gatherings,” Moeller said.

The changes also extend to the school’s 15th floor space, but the plans for this section have not yet been determined.

While their initial goal was to sign a new lease by Thanksgiving, the school hopes to sign by the end of this year, "hopefully before Christmas," Moeller said.