Southampton: Solent University's £28m sports centre will be asset for the city

Work on a brand new sports building at Southampton Solent University’s city centre campus is set to start after being given the go ahead by the city council’s planning panel.

Work will begin on the new £28 million building on Monday 7 August. It is the latest step in an ongoing £100m estates development plan, which is transforming Solent’s East Park Terrace (EPT) campus. The University’s primary learning and teaching building, the Spark, is already in use and has proved revolutionary for both staff and students.

Facilities in the building will include two sports halls, three fitness studios, a health and wellbeing gym, a strength and conditioning gym and high quality teaching facilities. In addition, parking will be developed underneath the building.

“Starting work on the new sports building is great news for our students and staff, as well as our local community and the city,” said Southampton Solent University’s vice-chancellor, professor Graham Baldwin.

“It forms the latest phase of our exciting, ongoing estates development and in addition to our sector leading Spark building, it represents a further physical manifestation of our commitment to excellence in learning and teaching.”

The new structure will sit alongside the Spark building and will link to the rest of the EPT site to create a thriving, student community across a range of excellent facilities. The University has been rated 31 out of 127 for its facilities in the Whatuni Student Choice Awards, which are based on 27,000 student reviews of universities, and was recently named Most Improved University at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) National Awards.

Designed by Morgan Sindall and their team, including Architecture PLB and Arup engineers and supported by planning consultants JLL, the first students will make use of the building during summer 2019.