Centennial College has grown rapidly over the past several years and demand for student housing has outpaced the capacity of our existing 340-bed facility on Progress Avenue. Research shows that a lack of access to a residence is an impediment for students living just outside a reasonable commuting distance from campus.

Recently, Centennial approved Knightstone Capital Management as the successful bidder to undertake the planning, financing, construction and management of the new residence at Progress Campus, known as the Centennial College Residence and Culinary Arts Centre. Other key partners in the project include Diamond Schmitt Architects, Canadian Campus Communities and FRAM Building Group.

Like the Story Arts Centre in East York, the new residence will be a quadrangle with a central courtyard to allow natural light to reach all of the residence rooms. There will be space for 740 students in two- and four-bed suites, complete with a bathroom and kitchen in every suite. Each resident will have his or her own bedroom. There will also be communal kitchens and lounge space where students can congregate. The residence floors will be highly secure and inaccessible from other parts of the building.

The eight-storey building will dedicate the ground level to our Culinary Arts Centre, complete with seven labs, a teaching restaurant and nine new classrooms. The labs will be naturally lit with enormous glass panels so that those passing by can see our students learning in our professional facilities. A conference and banquet centre on the top floor will be serviced by the kitchens below, with space for 425 guests in the conference centre and up to 600 students in the labs and classrooms. The facility will be LEED Gold-certified with a focus on sustainable “green” practices as they apply to the hospitality industry.

The new building will be much more than a residential building. It will promote the “living learning” experience and the opportunity for students to engage in a wide range of extra-curricular activities – this is what differentiates campus living. Canadian Campus Communities has a strong track record of creating an academic orientation, focused on student growth in four distinct areas: intellectual, cultural, recreational and social development.

The $85-million Centennial College Residence and Culinary Arts Centre will be built at the south end of Parking Lot 1 located close to Progress Ave. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring, with occupancy slated for the summer of 2016. The building will displace 150 parking spaces, which will be accommodated in Parking Lot 7 at the east end of campus.

The new residence is the latest initiative in Centennial’s implementation of its ambitious Strategic Campus Plan, which has already seen new buildings constructed at Progress and Ashtonbee campuses, and extensive renovations made to existing facilities. In addition, preliminary design work has begun on our Aerospace facility at Downsview Park. All together, this work represents $330 million in capital investments – the majority of it already expended or underway.