Construction on the Peters Building is well underway.
“Almost all of the demolition is complete,” Brent Carpenter, project manager of capital projects, physical resources at Laurier, said. “New walls are going up and the new building is starting to take shape.
The project, which is expected to be completed around April 30, 2018, should have students studying in Peters again in the Fall 2018 semester.
“There’s going to be construction in that area for the next little while and when it’s all said and done, it’s going to be a fantastic space,” Carpenter said. “It’s going to refresh that entire corner of the university, inside and outside.”
During the school year, there will also be some construction work happening in the Schlegel building on the second and third floors.
“We’re going to try our best to keep it as quiet as possible,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter claims that working around class schedules will be “a challenge,” but he is confident in the construction team and their ability to handle the amount or noise and disturbance to class activities.
“Obviously, it’s a construction site and there could be some noise happening, but we’ve got a good contractor on board who’s going to work with us to try and keep things under control.”
As more and more students found their schedules saying “Lazaridis Hall,” there was an opportunity to update the Peters building and bring in some different kinds of students.
“The school of business has a new home, so we had a building that could house new groups,” Carpenter continued. “A lot of the mechanical-electrical systems are well past their usable age, so that was the main aim of this: to improve all of their systems.”
In addition to the modernization of the building, Peters should be much more energy-efficient when the project is complete, as this was another main focus of the renovations.
The biggest physical change students should find is a new entrance to the building off of the corner of Albert and University, making the building more easily accessible to students living on that side of campus.
The new Peters building will become home to many of the services that are currently available at the 202 Regina Street administration building.
“I think this is going to benefit everyone,” Carpenter claimed. “The welcome centre will be relocated to the first floor of the Peters building, which will be right next to Service Laurier… on the main floor of the Schlegel building.”
In addition to these changes, the registrar’s office will also be in the Schlegel building and teaching and learning services will be on the second floor of Peters.
The third floor will be faculty offices for some of the Arts’ department, including philosophy, women and gender studies and archaeology.
What the university will do with all the new empty space in 202 Regina has not yet been totally decided, but one idea includes moving some of the faculty and staff from the 255 King building.
“[202 Regina Street] will be more of an administration building,” Carpenter said. “I’m not exactly sure the plan on classes, whether or not there will be classes there.”
The aim of bringing these services to campus was one that reflects the opinions of students.
“I know a few years ago there was a campus-wide survey put out for where some of these services should be and how it should be rearranged,” Carpenter said.
Bringing these essential services onto the main campus was one of the major themes of this survey, so as Lazaridis Hall created extra space, there was an opportunity to listen to the students’ requests.
“Bear with us for a few months, and it’s going to be a great space for everybody for the future,” Carpenter said.
“We’re pretty excited about this building.”
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