CREDIT: ANGELA MCINNES
Fanshawe's newest building on Dundas Street is finally open to the public and with a mix of modern and past touches to the building, it's looking up to be a great place to learn and gain new opportunities.

After years of planning and development, Fanshawe College has officially opened the doors of its new downtown campus.

Located at 130 Dundas St., the former site for the historic Kingsmill's Department Store now houses programs for the Schools of Tourism, Hospitality and Culinary Arts as well as the School of Information Technology (IT).

It is the third campus to open in the area, after the School of Digital and Performing Arts and Access Studies, but it is the first of the three to provide registrar and administrative services to students.

The space contains five floors plus a basement to accommodate over 1,600 students and an additional number of staff. It features modern, fully equipped culinary and IT labs, a beverage tasting lab, several collaborative study spaces, an amphitheatre, and a golf simulation room.

The campus itself is a student-only arena, but a walkway between Dundas and Carling streets is open to the public, as well as a handson teaching restaurant called The Chef's Table. Customers will be able to dine out on a patio once construction for the City's Dundas flex street project is complete.

Peter Gilbert, the College's chief infrastructure officer, said these elements are part of a plan to integrate Fanshawe's presence into London's downtown culture.

“We've tried not to duplicate what's already downtown. We are encouraging students to shop in the local shops, and eat in the local restaurants nearby,” Gilbert said. “We want them to become embedded in the landscape and be part of downtown.”

Despite its contemporary design, hints of downtown London's history can be found throughout the campus. A 4,000 pounds safe, belonging to Kingsmill's, open for nearly 150 years before closing in 2014, remains preserved on the lower floor.

Not far from it is a mural honouring Wilfred “Wilf” Hornick, a longtime employee of the department store.

Other nods include original wooden beams and tin plating in the ceiling. A bench formerly used for weary shopping partners, now dubbed a “husband's bench”, sits near the Carling Street entrance.

A pneumatic tube system used to exchange sales bills has been put on display, and one of the elevator cabs has been transformed into a fitting room at the campus retail store.

“It was important to the city and it's important to the Kingsmill family themselves that we keep as much of the building and the history alive,” Fanshawe College's president, Peter Devlin, said. “We know just in talking to the Kingsmill family that they're thrilled, and we know that others will be as they come back into the area and see things that spark memories from their youth.”

Some incoming students may be too young to recall any possible visits to Kingsmill's, but nevertheless say they look forward to making new memories in its refurbished halls.

“Knowing that the new building was just recently made, it really impresses me to look inside and see everything going on. It's really interesting,” said Keiran Hollenbeck, a new interactive media design student taking classes in two of the downtown campuses.

Tylana Atkinson is entering her final semester of special events planning after having done the previous semesters at Fanshawe's Oxford Street campus.

“I'm most excited by how new this is,” Atkinson said of the building. “To be able to have half of my experience where I was familiar with the environment, and to have this whole new adventure.”

For more information on the building, visit fanshawec.ca.