Seeking ways to innovate and build for the future, Smart had the opportunity to work with the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) to create a commercial space masterplan centered around enhancing the student experience.
Hospitality and retail are a key component of campus life and offer the biggest opportunity to delight. As the expectations for services and amenities on campus evolve and change, schools and universities must adapt to meet the needs of their student body and core demographic.
With a strong focus on retail and foodservice, our masterplan is forward-thinking and flexible – ensuring the student experience is of upmost priority whilst leveraging existing real estate to make an immediate impact and reduce the need for costly capital investment. Thus, through convenience retail, enticing F&B, and appropriate services, a vibrant campus can be quickly and successfully executed. The vision to create a campus community centered around accessibility, visibility and choice creates opportunity to enhance the student experience and drive revenues.
A thorough assessment of the site and its commercial space allowed our team to understand the challenges and opportunities for growth, as well as, the student experience. Through our research and benchmarking studies, our goals for BCIT were to: have a consistent vision across all stakeholders, increase branding presence and campus placemaking, maximize commercial opportunities for retail and foodservice, streamline operations and logistics, and meet the needs and expectations of future students.
Utilizing prime real estate on campus, Smart proposed a connected central hub that accommodates and serves all campus needs, allowing students to congregate and interact, all whilst shopping, eating or utilizing services. This simply allows the institute to streamline operations, reduce OPEX, and increase opportunity to leverage new and additional spend. Repurposing existing concessions and other commercial spaces creates opportunity to innovate and better serve student needs. To increase operational efficiency, a centralized production/commissary, distribution and storage space for the entire campus could support campus catering, events and capture the underserved night program students and residents, leveraging a ghost kitchen and technology usage.
Understanding the site’s traffic flows, accessibility, and connectivity has significant impact on the success of a masterplan. For best performance, we suggested commercial space have ample connectivity to circulation paths at street level, with accessibility from the buildings where possible. Often schools bury commercial space inappropriately and rely on pure convenience for sales.
Our masterplan is focused on serving the students – one that strengthens connectivity, fosters community, and delivers a vibrant and memorable campus life at BCIT with the additional benefit of generating an opportunity to achieve additional revenues. BCIT’s dedication to their students, staff and their experiences will ultimately guide the evolution of the Burnaby campus, creating a space that furthers collaboration and inspires innovation.
The next step in the project is for BCIT to execute the plan and deliver a leading campus environment.