Providence University College has announced its plans for the construction of a new dorm facility on campus.

This announcement comes nearly a year after their men’s dorm, Bergen Hall, was completely lost in a fire. Marlin Reimer, Associate Vice-President for Student Life at Providence, says although the loss of Bergen Hall was tragic, it has given them the opportunity to rethink how they structure life on campus for students.

"We’re building a building that is going to be three floors. Our main floor is going to be community life focused so there will a be a couple of staff apartments. We’re really excited about the community space on the bottom floor with a big community kitchen, a lot of students will be excited about that, prayer rooms, study rooms, that kind of thing. Our second and third floor will be residence floors."

Reimer notes due to the size of this new building the plan is to house male students on the second floor and female students on the third floor with restricted swipe card access to each floor. He says in total this new facility has the capacity to hold 130 students. Reimer explains this new building, called the Living and Learning Centre, is cross-shaped and says each of the four pods, which would house about 16 students, is specifically designed to enhance community living among students.

"We really feel that type of peer group and building a pod that holds a number of students is really good for learning, learning that happens outside the classroom as well. Just connecting with a peer group and having the space designed for that to happen well rather than just a long half a kilometre hallway with just rooms off of it is just not a great design for us. The building will have a lot of light in it. Tall ceilings in rooms, lots of light really helps mental health, really helps feel like that space is more home-like rather than institutional and so that’s really been a big part of how we’ve been driving this building."

He adds their goal is to create an environment where their students can feel at home while on campus. Reimer says although the loss of Bergen Hall was tragic, it has actually opened some doors for them in terms of options of how they can improve life for students on campus.   

"Bergan Hall was a great building and it had a lot of great things in it that helped drive community but over the last decade I think we’ve really moved forward with understanding more of how residence halls can help drive your learning on campus, your community and so we really see this as an opportunity and it’s an exciting opportunity because we can plan, we can talk to experts in the field and visit other schools which we’ve done. We can spend time thinking about how this building helps us meet our mission."

Reimer says construction of the new facility is scheduled to start in late August of this year and they hope to have it completed for the 2019-2020 school year. 

Read More: Providence's Bergen Hall A Complete Loss 

Providence Hopes For New Men's Dorm By January Of 2019