After more than three years, a pandemic, and a fire, the 200 King building has reopened for students.
The main building of the St. James campus is finally reopening after being closed for renovations after a fire in August 2021.
The reopening of the 200 King building, which is also known as Building A of the St. James campus, is a long-awaited event. The building was not in use for over a year before the fire itself due to restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Michelle McCollum, vice president of facilities and sustainability at GBC said, “The significance of this building cannot be underestimated in downtown Toronto. It is an entire city block, and an anchor for many of our program areas including our Business School, support spaces for our Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts, for Preparatory and Liberal Studies and other important program areas. 200 King is also an important building for college employees, many of whom feel that the building is the central piece to the St James Campus.”
The fire that caused the closure of the building impacted essential heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment which required a significant amount of time to be fixed.
“We are happy that, despite the challenges, we have been able to make some renovations to the building to improve student experiences. We are also considering longer term investments in the property to further enhance our building spaces and interiors, and this is further being explored within our current campus master planning process,” McCollum added.
In the absence of this space, students had been relocated to the other campuses or to the other buildings within St. James campus. The Student Association (SA) services were also relocated to Building C during the two years of the main building’s closure.
Starting this fall semester, students will be back at St. James which is newly renovated and improved.
Sara Masoumi, a student in the Project Management program said, “I am enthusiastic about figuring out various places and communities, so it is interesting to start new semester in new campus with new people.”
Masoumi’s program is a part of the Center for Business and was moved to the Casa Loma campus due to limited space at St. James without the 200 King space.
“The best part of it is the location. For me it takes approximately 15 minutes to get to the St. James campus, however I had to waste around 35 minutes to go to the Casa Loma. In other words, easy accessibility is remarkably significant for me,” she said.
The SA space at St. James campus is also reopening this fall with a new layout, new furniture, and additional features.
“We’ve got a big 98-inch screen coming into the lounge to add to the music and the atmosphere, new office setting with a new front layout. We are excited to just reopen the space. We got new foosball tables for anyone who likes foosball. Subway is reopening and by January we’re looking to hopefully find something new and interesting, different food vendors or suppliers to maybe do a grab-and-go,” said Jason Beeston, senior coordinator of building services at the SA.
The SA space has a student lounge and office spaces for SA services such as CCC and SNAP which were not operating on full scale at the St. James campus since the fire.
Rosalyn Miller, general manager of the SA expressed the organization’s enthusiasm to bring back the SA and its services to St. James.
“I think every campus is unique, but for some reason St. James’s has almost been like the hub for the Student Association and to go three years without our hub has been difficult,” she said, “Can’t wait to walk those hallways, can’t wait to reopen our King’s lounge and to interact with the campus we love. Of course, we will never forget Casa Loma because it really is just a really key central point for us to really move around strategically and quickly and efficiently.”
Students at St. James can expect to have major SA events back in the main building in the new academic year.
