Plymouth Marjon University is to build a £21m hall of residence and may knock down its existing accommodation blocks.
The university is also considering keeping some of its seven halls and refitting them, but still aims to build the new accommodation by late 2024 or 2025.
It is also planning a £100,000 redevelopment of its tennis courts and a £750,000 rebuild of its artificial sports pitch, both in 2023 or 2024.
More South West planned developments
The university has already started work on a £3.5m scheme to replace its gas boilers with ground source heat pumps in a bid to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2023 and establish Marjon as being “at the forefront of carbon reductions and responding to the climate emergency”.
Details of the projects were given at a Meet the City Buyers presentation, held at City College Plymouth, where about 100 representatives from the construction industry were briefed on major building projects that are in the pipeline.
Ben Jones, procurement manager at Marjon, said it was “exciting times” at the university but stressed the plans for the accommodation facilities were still at an early stage.
He said it wasn’t yet decided whether all the existing blocks or “one of two” would be demolished but stressed: “The plan is to build a new hall and retrofit any that remain. The indicative spend is £21m to rebuild and £500,000 for demolition, if it is needed.”
The entire Marjon university is based on one campus in the north of Plymouth, where there are seven halls of residence, in addition to a student village.
Students studying at Marjon for the first time are guaranteed either a room on campus or in off-site university approved accommodation.
The Coleridge, Kay Shuttleworth and Tufnell halls offer standard rooms in flats with six bedrooms and en suite bathrooms in flats with five bedrooms, and are especially used by first-year students.
The Clark, Cromwell and Hudson halls have standard rooms in flats with nine bedrooms and are also mostly used by first-years students, as is Dix Hall, which has six-bedroom flats, each with a shared kitchen-diner.
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In 2020 it was revealed that Plymouth’s universities pump £320m into the city’s economy and support 5,630 jobs. A study by Hatch Regeneris for the University and College Union (UCU) has found that between them the University of Plymouth, Marjon and Plymouth College of Art directly employ 3,020 people and support another 2,610 jobs across the city through supply chains and the expenditure of staff and students.
Marjon was awarded full university status in 2013 after having been affiliated with the University of Exeter prior to that. It has about 2,750 students of which most are undergraduates.
