Laurier Brantford students have something to be excited for this fall, an almost $40,000 renovation on the Student Centre lounges.

The renovation was the result of a Student Life Levy granted to Laurier Brantford’s Student Life and Engagement office.

The Student Centre, located at the corner of George and Darling streets, was built in 2006 with funding from the university, the Student Union and the City of Brantford.

Jessi Calberry, Learning and Co-Curricular Programming Coordinator, was named Project Lead after being able to obtain the levy. According to Calberry, her predecessor, Ross Fraser, had attempted to get the levy, but because of a massive rearranging of positions, the levy got pushed to the back burner.

“The Student Union had conducted a campus space review and I had conducted my own smaller version one to two years ago. We took the results from that and figured out that the couches which used to be there were not being used to their full potential.”

“[The furniture]’s been well worn and well used so we decided that this is something we needed to do,” said Calberry. “Once the dust settled, this was one of the projects left sitting on my table. So I met with the Student Union and Ania Onichuk, who works at Laurier Waterloo … and we started working toward figuring out what would be best to replace the furniture.”

The result of Calberry and Onichuk’s work is obvious with the lounges now full of single-couch seating which can be pushed together or pulled apart.

The situation that the lounges were in before simply did not work, explained Calberry. “You have a three person seated couch and you’d have one person seated on one end and one person would be on the other and the middle seat is wasted, so that is not a great use of space and the furniture had been there since the Student Centre opened in 2006.”

By replacing the couches with single seats, the available space was optimized for studying and entertainment purposes.

Much of the furniture, which had previously been in the lounge, was distributed to the Carnegie building. The rest was donated to Brant Habitat for Humanity.

Calberry is most excited for the renovation because of what it means for students.

“More students will now be able to access the lounge, both upstairs and downstairs, so it should be a more welcoming environment; a place for students to study or have movie nights and feel comfortable. “

Calberry suspects that the Student Life Levy will most likely be coved in the elections this year because of it’s proven usefulness. “The Student Life Levy is a phenomenal idea and a good place for students to go if they have an idea they want implemented on campus.”