Happy 10th Birthday, BSB!

If the BSB were human, it’d be in fourth grade and celebrating its birthday by getting a sugar rush from chocolate cake. That’s right; Sept. 24, 2014 marks the 10th anniversary of the official dedication of the Baylor Sciences Building.

The plans. Before the $103.3 million colossus known as the BSB was constructed, Baylor’s five major departments of science were split between the Sid Richardson and Marrs McLean Science buildings. Both facilities had been built 30 years earlier, when the student body was half the size it is today. So in 2002, Baylor administrators decided it was time for a new sciences building that would bring together the disjointed departments in a 21st-century facility.

The groundbreaking. With completion of the four-story, 500,000-square-foot building aimed for fall of 2004, it was the largest and most ambitious construction project in Baylor’s history. The groundbreaking event for the BSB occurred May 17, 2002, when President Robert Sloan, BA ’70, manned the bulldozer that turned the first dirt on the site.

The opening. At 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 24, 2004, the Baylor Sciences Building was dedicated on the outdoor plaza that joins it to McLane Student Life Center. Today, thousands of faculty, staff and students walk through its doors each day, be it for classes, study sessions or meeting friends and colleagues.

Sic ’em, BSB!