According to Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of the Viterbi School of Engineering, the department will now be known as the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Astani, who earned his degree at USC two years after arriving in the US from his native Iran, says that his hope is that the gift "will allow a new generation of civil and environmental engineers to rise to the increasingly complex challenges created by the urbanization of Los Angeles and the changes to the global environment we are now facing."

Astani is the chairman of Astani Enterprises, a Beverly Hills based development firm that owns or operates approximately 4,000 apartment units throughout Southern California and is currently developing approximately 2,000 units of condominiums and lofts in Downtown Los Angeles with a total value in excess of $1 billion. These include five iconic residential towers and two loft buildings: the Concerto, a mixed-use twin 32-story towers with 27,000 sf of shops, restaurant and spa; the 38-story Grand; and Vero at 1234 Wilshire Blvd.

Last year, Astani Enterprises donated $1.5 to the Skid Row Housing Trust. The $1.5 million completed funding for a downtown apartment complex, Abbey Apartments, that will house 115 of Los Angeles' mentally ill homeless when it opens in next year.

The Astani donation is the seventh multimillion-dollar donation from a USC engineering alumnus in the last six years, following earlier gifts by Andrew J. Viterbi, naming the school, and by six others naming departments , centers and institutes. USC President Steven B. Sample comments that the gift underscores how Astani "understands the crucial role civil and environmental engineers must play as more and more people live in cities.