The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) has announced plans to consult students at the SFU Surrey campus about improving study and social spaces. The results of this week’s consultation will be shared with university representatives in the coming weeks, according to SFSS President Hangue Kim.

“The SFU Surrey campus has been growing significantly for years, but the ability to provide social and study spaces for students has not kept pace,” said Kim in a statement last week.

The society has expressed their interest in securing space in the new Sustainable Energy Engineering Building, a five-storey expansion of the SFU Surrey campus scheduled to open in 2018.

“In the last few years, we have had a number of discussions with SFU administration regarding space expansion on the Surrey campus, but we have yet to come to an agreement,” said Kim.

“With the recent announcement of the ‘Sustainable Energy Engineering Building,’ we believe that there is a new and exciting opportunity to develop an agreement that will bring new student-centric space for members.”

The statement noted that the SFSS is seeking dedicated study spaces as well as multipurpose social space to provide a venue for campus events.

“We understand that there will be many SFU academic and administrative requests for space as a result of the new building being constructed,” said Kim. “We believe that student interests should be an important consideration in the decisions for the three-phase academic expansion for SFU Surrey.”

Earlier this year, the SFSS’s annual student survey indicated that students wanted to see more study spaces on campus, according to the statement. The SFSS also noted that the results align with “student sentiment that has been regularly expressed in Surrey.”

SFU announced its plans to expand space on the Surrey campus last year. The Sustainable Energy Engineering Building will host engineering and entrepreneurship programs as well as student spaces.

The first two levels of the building are scheduled to be completed by mid-2018, and construction on the remaining three storeys will continue after the building is open.

The university and federal and provincial government have made a $126-million investment for the new building.