Starbucks coffeehouse will celebrate the grand opening of a new location in the student centre on Monday, Aug. 30.

Dave McEwen, acting executive director of Campus Services, says the event has been years in the making. He met with the company in 2018 to discuss building a store on campus, but space restrictions put the idea on hold. Renovations to the student centre enabled him to revisit discussion with Starbucks.

“I proposed the idea of knocking down the Tim Hortons so we could open the sight lines,” says McEwen. “This gave Starbucks a blank canvas to design and build the store behind the information desk.”

Construction started in June 2020 and the project was completed earlier this year.

“The store looks amazing, is very contemporary, doesn’t look like other stores and really fits in well with the renovation of the student centre,” McEwen says. “After years of planning, we thrilled to announce our grand opening!”

The outlet will serve patrons Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. McEwen says the department will look at increasing its hours of operation as activity on campus returns to normal.