Wilmott Dixon to Construct £13.4m Economics building

Willmott Dixon has won a £13.4 million contract to build the University of Kent’s new School of Economics.

Having already built the Sibson building, home to Kent Business School and the School of Mathematics, Willmott Dixon have now been tasked with completing the business and finance sector of the campus.

The company’s aim is to finish the building by the 2019-2020 academic year. The construction of the Sibson building took a little over 18 months to build, making this project one of a similar scale.

The building will replace the Kent Research and Development Centre, expected to be demolished by the end of this month.

The managing director of Willmott Dixon, within the Kent area, has stated that the company is “delighted to be working once again with the University of Kent, we’ll be bringing our experience of higher education and working in live environments on major hub projects to ensure we create a centrepiece that will provide an excellent learning environment for many generations to come.”

Denise Everitt, the University of Kent’s Chief Operating Officer, has said: “The construction of a new School of Economics building forms part of the ongoing work at the university to continue to provide world-class teaching and research facilities for staff and students alike.”

Plans released by the university show the building to span three floors, being approximately 4,000m2 in area. The ground floor will house an IT suite and several seminar rooms, whilst the first and second floors will contain further teaching and study space, alongside academic offices and meeting rooms.

The move to open a physical space for the School of Economics is inline with the University’s fifty-year plan which accommodates for several departments to have their own buildings, where their operations are centralised, and students are aware of the locations of Kent’s many academic schools.