Construction and real estate development firm Skanska USA has signed a $57 million contract to build a new educational facility on Harvard Business School’s Boston campus.

The Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be built on the site of the existing Kresge Hall, just south of where the Weeks Footbridge crosses Soldiers Field Road.

The facility will serve as "the unifying gateway and central hub" for the five buildings comprising the executive education portion of the campus in the city’s Allston neighborhood.

Skanska plans for the approximately 87,000-square-foot building to achieve a Gold level LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The project will break ground in March 2014 and is expected to be completed in May 2016.

The new building is named after the late wife of Dr. James Si-Cheng Chao, a shipping magnate whose daughters attended the business school. Chao last year donated $40 million to the college to help fund the executive education center. The new Chao center will be the second of the school’s projects devoted to training current corporate executives.