The new building
The future of Newcastle Business School as part of Northumbria University…
In September 2007 Newcastle Business School (NBS) will be moving to a brand new£70 million state of the art new building, which as well as being a prominent landmark within the city will also offer a world class learning and social facility for all students joining NBS at the start of the 2007 academic year.
Built by Sir Robert McAlpine Construction the new building is one of two currently in development on the old Warner Brother cinema site, the other being the new home for the school of Design. Both are part of a bigger programme of development for Northumbria University, which also includes the refurbishment and landscaping of the current university’s campus (due for completion 2010).
The overall investment made by the university is some £103 million, which is the university’s largest ever investment programme to date and one, which will make a major contribution to the city’s growth and regeneration.
Professor Kel Fidler, Northumbria University’s Vice Chancellor said:
" This is a fantastically exciting development for Northumbria, the biggest in our history and the new buildings will take the university into a whole new ear of development. "
The brand new development (also known as ‘City Campus East’) is 24,000 square metres of purpose designed academic accommodation, including classrooms, lecture theatres (including a 400 seat theatre with state of the art audio/visual equipment), hub areas and exhibition space all of which are at the cutting edge of design and technology.
The new world-class centre for learning will further develop the reputation and quality of our programmes and services and offer students, staff and businesses alike the chance to access state of the art, world class facilities…
Why is Northumbria University investing so heavily in its campus…
Over the past five years, Northumbria University has put a huge effort positioning itself to offer a distinctive brand and value for money.
We have gradually increased our A level offer to students to position the university in the right part of the Higher Education market, a major re-branding exercise was rolled out five years ago and we have established a distinctive market position in countries such as Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and China.
Over the coming years we expect an additional 3,000 full time students to join us, so there is an urgent need for more space for core teaching activities to be delivered.
The development of the new site will also have a benefit for all areas of the University. The erection of two new buildings to house three academic schools (Business, Law and Design) frees up considerable space on the city site, giving the other schools and services room to breathe, expand and move into, either permanently or temporarily while their current buildings are extensively refurbished and renovated.
