SHU Plans April 19 Groundbreaking for $17m Student Commons Building

Sacred Heart University will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on April 19 for a 46,000-square-foot "Student Commons" building, a $17 million undertaking that is scheduled to be finished in early 2012.

The ceremony will start at 11 a.m. on the university's Park Avenue campus, university officials announced today.

The Student Commons building, designed to link SHU's upper and lower campuses, would be set into a hill by the university's Humanities Center Academic Wing and Merton Hall and off a driveway that leads to the William H. Pitt Health and Recreation Center.

The building will include a full-service kitchen; a main dining hall that will seat 250 people; a smaller dining area that will seat 50 people; a bookstore; a computer services center known as the "IT Factory;" lounges; and study, presentation and conference rooms.

Fairfield's Town Plan and Zoning Commission, an elected board of 10 volunteer residents, voted to approve plans for the Student Commons building on Feb. 23.

SHU said the V-shaped building was designed by Sasaki Architects of Watertown, Mass., which also designed the university's Chapel of the Holy Spirit that opened in September 2009.

SHU is the second largest Catholic university in New England, with a total of about 6,000 students attending the university's four colleges. SHU's campus is at the border of Fairfield and Bridgeport.