James Madison University opened the $66.5 million, 115,000-square-foot Hartman Hall in fall 2020. It’s named for JMU alum James Hartman and his family, who donated $3.7 million toward the new business school academic building. Photo by JMU Creative Media
Weaving through the sea of students walking to class and working on the floor in groups, the business faculty at James Madison University’s Zane Showker Hall had a running joke: Getting to their offices each day was akin to an Indiana Jones adventure.
It wasn’t that Showker Hall wasn’t a nice place; it was just that with the rapid expansion of JMU’s College of Business in recent years, a building that was intended for 2,400 students was straining to accommodate 5,000.
