After a multi-stage design competition, Brock University selected Diamond Schmitt Architects and Fisher Dachs Associates to design the new 95,500sf facility, which is home for the school’s Departments of Music, Visual Arts, Dramatic Arts, and the Centre for Studies in Art and Culture.

This adaptive reuse of the 19th-Century Canada Hair Cloth Building, which is adjacent to the city’s new Performing Arts Centre site (also in design by Diamond Schmitt and FDA), forms Brock University’s piece of a $94M arts hub. The project was a long-planned cultural stimulus for the City of St. Catharines, contributing to the city’s cultural and economic development. Currently situated in Brock University’s main campus at the south end of St. Catharines, the theatre program along with 500 students and faculty will relocate to the new facility.

One of the centerpieces of the school is a 280-seat flexible studio theatre, to be used both by the school and as one of many civic gathering spaces that the University has planned to support the community. The existing building was completely renovated to suit its new purpose with classrooms, teaching studios, staff offices, and related support space.