UBC opens 316 new beds of student housing at Vancouver campus

UBC's Brock Commons North (left) and the Arts Student Centre and Brock Commons South (right), as of August 12, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Just in time for the start of the new school year, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has opened a brand-new student housing building to help meet the overwhelming demand for on-campus residence options.

Brock Commons North is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of East Mall and Walt Gage Road — immediately adjacent to the Peter Allard School of Law building, and the 2021-built Arts Student Centre pavilion building. It is built on a footprint that was previously an open grass lawn and surface vehicle parking.

Andrew Parr, the associate vice president of Student Housing and Community Services of UBC, told Daily Hive Urbanized that dozens of residents began their move into the newly built tower on Tuesday.

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The 18-storey building offers a total of 316 beds within 63 four-bedroom shared suites and 64 private studio suites with a private bathroom and kitchen. Rents for this school year are set at $1,142 per month for a room in the four-bedroom suite and $1,380 per month for a studio.

Student residents living at Brock Commons North will have access to a study room, a fitness room, a games room, music rooms, and social spaces. The ground level also includes legal clinic space for the adjacent law school and a student collegial space.

brock commons north south ubc august 12 2023

UBC’s Brock Commons North (left), and the Arts Student Centre and Brock Commons South (right), as of August 12, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

UBC Brock Commons North, as of August 12, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

“We operate these buildings, and what we’re really committed to do is to create a really outstanding experience for students,” Parr told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview.

“Being able to live on campus, being part of the campus community, engaging more with the academic community and extracurricular activities… we’re really focused on creating respectful, inclusive living environments for students. It’s taking the house that we’ve built, and making it home as part of our role.”

Brock Commons North is the second of three buildings set for the Brock Commons student residence complex.

Brock Commons’ first building, the Tallwood House, was completed in 2017 with 404 beds at a cost of $52 million. As the name suggests, Tallwood House is a tall mass timber building, and with a height of 174 ft containing 18 storeys, it was the tallest building of its kind in the world when it first opened. It replaced portable office structures along Walt Gage Road.

The third and final building of Brock Commons will be Brock Commons South, which is currently approaching the latter stages of construction on the former footprint of Brock Hall Annex — the southeast corner of the intersection of East Mall and Walt Gage Road. An integrated public realm will be created between these three buildings.

UBC’s Brock Commons North (right) and Brock Commons South (left), as of August 12, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

UBC Brock Commons South, as of August 12, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Parr says the larger Brock Commons South building is expected to be ready in late Spring 2024. Similar to the 2015/2016-built Ponderosa Commons, this 13-storey building will have a wide range of mixed uses, with the upper levels above the base podium levels dedicated to 282 beds of student housing. There will be classrooms and academic spaces for the Faculty of Arts, gathering and socializing areas for students, student services, food outlets, two childcare facilities, and the new offices of the UBC vice president of students.

The combined total cost of Brock Commons North and Brock Commons South is $165 million, including $59 million for Brock Commons North. Both buildings, carrying a combined total floor area of about 325,000 sq ft, were designed by HCMA Architecture & Design.

There is immense demand for adding more on-campus student housing capacity, especially with Metro Vancouver’s growing housing affordability and supply issues, but Parr says keeping up with the demand is challenging for a range of reasons.

UBC built 5,550 new student residence beds on its Vancouver and Okanagan campuses over the past 12 years. Over the same timeframe, its on-campus student housing waitlist has grown from 3,200 students in 2010 to up to 6,000 students in 2019, and up to 8,000 students in 2022.

The university has plans to build 4,800 new beds over the coming years at a cost of $1.4 billion.

Layout of UBC Brock Commons Phase II. (HCMA Architecture + Design)

Artistic rendering of UBC Brock Commons Phase II. (HCMA Architecture + Design)

Brock Commons North marks the third consecutive annual completion of a new student housing project at UBC’s Vancouver campus.

In 2021, UBC opened the first two buildings of The Houses of the Ones Belonging to the Saltwater (THOBS) — the Indigenous name of the student residence, built along Student Union Boulevard and next to Walter Gage Residences — providing about 400 beds for mainly upper-year undergraduate and graduate students. The final three buildings of THOBS, completing the remaining 500 beds, saw staggered openings in 2022.

Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, UBC opened the Exchange Residence, which generated about 650 beds — mainly for upper-year undergraduate students — directly above TransLink’s new bus layover facility serving the main bus loop.

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