UNC Charlotte’s School of Architecture has been named after Northwood Ravin CEO David Ravin after he provided a gift to the school to boost various initiatives.
Plans call for Ravin’s undisclosed donation to help pay for student travel abroad, marketing to boost the school’s profile and a new housing and development program. It will be called the David R. Ravin School of Architecture.
Ravin has been among Charlotte’s most active apartment developers over the last decade. He graduated from UNC Charlotte in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a minor in geography. He earned master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“David Ravin has said that his experience in our architecture program taught him how to learn,” Brook Muller, dean of the College of Arts + Architecture, said in a release. “That says a lot, given David’s educational pedigree.”
Ravin started his Charlotte-based company in 2011, then sold an interest to New York-based Northwood. The latter company is best known for buying the Ballantyne Corporate Park from Charlotte developer Smoky Bissell for more than $1 billion in 2017.
Northwood Ravin has projects in five states and offices in Charlotte, Raleigh and Tampa, Florida. Its N.C. projects include a 15-story apartment building at 500 West Trade Street in uptown Charlotte and Ballantyne Townhomes at Bridlestone in Pineville.
The UNC Charlotte architecture school just celebrated its 50th anniversary. It has 2,500 alumni.
