University awards £7m contract for gymnasium refurbishment

How the gymnasium building will look

The University of Birmingham has awarded a £7m contract to Willmott Dixon to refurbish a gymnasium at its Edgbaston campus.

The contract is the third secured by the builder at the university and follows projects worth a combined £15m to create a so-called ‘Green Heart’ and a new Research Data Centre, again both at the Edgbaston campus.

It also reinforces the company’s work within the Midlands higher education sector, which in addition to the University of Birmingham has also seen it complete projects at the University of Warwick and Coventry University.

The combined value of the work is £66m.

The old gymnasium building will be converted to include new teaching and office space, including a lecture theatre, as well as transitional space for other departments while wider campus regeneration work continues.

Built in the 1940s, the old gymnasium remains partially in use as a gym, with offices on the first and second floors. Originally scheduled for demolition as part of estate renewal works by the university, it will now be retained and modernised, including adding a two-storey extension on top of the gym area to sympathetically enhance the useable space.

Peter Owen, managing director of Willmott Dixon in the Midlands, said: “We are naturally very pleased to secure our third project for the University of Birmingham, adding to its transformational campus redevelopment. These projects are fantastic for the Midlands, positioning it as a world leader for education.”

Working with Associated Architects, Willmott Dixon aims to complete the modernisation work by September 2018 in time for the new academic year.

This latest university contract follows Willmott Dixon’s announcement that it will build RNN Group’s University Centre Rotherham to boost skills growth in the region, as well as create the first undergraduate School of Medicine in Essex for Anglia Ruskin at its Chelmsford campus.

The company is also building the new Town House for Kingston University, the Sibson building for University of Kent, plus refurbishing the Dreadnought Building for Greenwich University and adding the Computational Foundry at Swansea University.

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