The Stokely Management Center (nicknamed the “Spam Can” by students) is a glass, steel, and concrete ovoid tower on Volunteer Boulevard, adjacent to the James Haslam II Business Administration Building. In October 1970 UT launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to expand the College of Business and start a new program to train business executives. The announcement was also made that a new building costing $3 to $4 million would be built with State dollars, to expand business facilities and house the UT Computer Center. (The Computer Center had been eliminated from construction of the administrative complex on Circle Park because of budget constraints.) At the time of the announcement of the new building, Business was located in six buildings: Glocker Business Administration Building (expanded and renamed the James Haslam II Business Administration Building), Aconda Court, South Stadium Hall, 1700 Lake Avenue, 1820 Terrace Avenue, and the Briscoe House.
William B. Stokely III served as general chairman of the private fund-raising campaign, and announced the first gift: $500,000 from the William B. Stokely Jr. Foundation. The building is named for three generations of the Stokely family named William B. Stokely.
The 115,077-square-foot building, completed in spring 1975 and dedicated on September 26, 1976, emulates corporate headquarters buildings of the period. Architects for the facility were Morton and Sweetser and McCarty, Bullock, Church, Holsaple. The contractor was Rentenbach Engineering. Design credit for the structure was given to Robert B. Church III, the late dean of architecture at UT. Cost of the facility was $4.2 million, and UT received a grant from the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to assist in paying interest on bonds issued to build the facility.
The formal beginning of construction on the building (excavation was already well under way) was held on November 20, 1972. The ceremony highlighted the balancing of state appropriations for the building and private gifts for enriched programs within the college. The balance was illustrated by a large scale on the University Center Plaza. Blocks depicting private sector investment in the college’s capital gifts campaign were placed on one side of the scale, balancing state appropriations on the other. When William B. Stokely III, campaign chairman, placed the last private sector block, labeled with the campaign’s $2.6 million total, the scale tipped and a dynamite blast went off.
In fall 1973 the scaffolding supporting an 80-foot radius containing 640,000 pounds of concrete collapsed under the weight of the beam, and one-half of the beam on the east side of the structure next to the university center fell eight inches. The beam had to be destroyed by jackhammers and rebuilt.
The facility also houses the main machine room and offices of the university’s Computer Center.