BUSU’s forthcoming Student Centre is scheduled to bring three storeys of student-focused space to Brock’s main campus.
Following the approval of two student referendums in 2019 and 2024 for BUSU to build a new Student Centre for Brock, planning for the construction of the Centre has been underway.
Now slated for completion in fall 2027, just over two years out from the project’s estimated completion, students can have an idea as to what to look forward to within BUSU’s Student Centre.
Construction will take place in the Union Station area of the Student-Alumni Centre potentially as soon as this summer. According to BUSU’s website, 5,000 square feet will be removed from the current Student-Alumni Centre, which currently houses 30,000 square feet, but BUSU’s new Student Centre will bring approximately 40,000 square feet of entirely student-focused space. Alongside what will be left of the current Student-Alumni Centre, the amount of student-focused space will total 65,000 square feet.
Carleigh Charlton, BUSU’s Vice President of University Affairs explained at the open house for the upcoming project that the new Student Centre will use the Student-Alumni Centre’s current space more productively, bringing numerous study spaces, meeting and collaboration rooms, and more.
McMichael Ruth, one of the architects on the project, and Kelsey Goossens, the firm’s project manager, expanded on Charlton’s sentiments at the open house, saying that a top priority during their planning of the project was to consider how the space could be made best for students.
For example, Goossens and Ruth highlighted the fact that the new Student Centre will make Brock’s bus terminals more accessible to students, extending the building closer to bus pick-up and drop-off spaces. Construction of the Student Centre will not affect the bus terminal location or running times.
They also plan to make the Student Centre “more welcoming” for students in comparison to Union Station’s current closed-off and box-like design. This includes adding a glass wall looking out onto the campus and terraces with student study space on upper levels, for example.
Construction on the new Student Centre is set to begin in April of this year, pending final approval from the Brock Board of Trustees this March.
Charlton explained that there will be a temporary wall at the entrance of Union Station while construction takes place but BUSU’s website confirms that additional seating for Union Station will be available on the third floor of the Student-Alumni Centre in Isaac’s Lounge.
The businesses in Union Station’s food court will mostly remain open during construction, with a brief closure during the summer. They will subsequently remain a part of the new Student Centre after construction finishes. Similarly, Isaac’s Lounge will remain open on the third floor of the Student-Alumni Centre during construction and return to its full size when the Student Centre is completed.
More information and complete renderings of BUSU’s new Student Centre can be found on BUSU’s website. If you have any questions about the Student Centre, you can contact Carleigh Charlton at vpua@brockbusu.ca.