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A £500m project in Bristol is edging closer to completion as the main structure was completed today and the countdown to opening in two years’ time has commenced. The new Enterprise Campus at Temple Quarter, from the University of Bristol and part of the regeneration of the area, will open in September 2026.
It will host 4,600 students, 650 staff and a number of local community groups. An inclusive hub will be built, which will connect students and post-graduates with employment opportunities and research opportunities, as well as bring various communities and sectors together.
Local facilities, including cafes and spaces for work, will be available for students and staff alike, whilst spaces for 300 enterprise partners will be available. The new building, which is 38,000 sqm and on the site of the former Royal Mail sorting office, will house the Business School, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Bristol Innovations and a number of engineering programmes.
Currently the site is at a third of the way through developments and as well as the main structure, a new entrance from Temple Meads has been constructed. The entrance, on the eastern side of the railway station, will also open in September 2026.
Behind the scenes of the project, opportunities for those wanting to get involved in engineering and construction have been given as the university has set up youngsters with experience on the new build. The six-storey building has a near-completed roof which is mostly full of solar panels to generate energy.
The rest of the building is also taking shape as the food court has been designed to be on the first level and external courtyards featured into the designs. Some plants will stretch along the storeys to reach the ceiling.
Professor Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Bristol, said that she is so excited for the building being closer to opening. She said: “You know when you start building a shed or a back garden or something like that and you just can’t imagine that it will ever be done and suddenly it’s going up. You can see the bones of it and you can see that it is going to be finished and ready soon.
“My mantra since I arrived here two years ago is that we are the university for Bristol and the University of Bristol. We work in a partnership with community groups and the city so this whole project has been built around the idea of partnership.
“There will be 4,600 students here. We thought carefully about how they will integrate with the community, how they will volunteer and how they will become citizens of the city. It is absolutely essential to how we have been thinking about this project.
“We have built this with sustainability at its heart. One of the challenges for the city of Bristol, and not just for the university, is when things were built in the 1960s or 1970s, things weren’t built with sustainability in mind, but when you build new buildings like this, you can put the highest standards in place from the very beginning.
“We have been working really closely with Homes England, with Temple Meads Station, with Bristol City Council, to see ourselves as collaborative partners in Europe’s biggest regeneration. This is transformative for this part of the city and we are an anchor, possibly the anchor tenant for this area, to really drive inclusive innovation leading to thousands of new jobs for people who want to live and work in Bristol.”
The project forms part of efforts to regenerate Temple Quarter, which aims to deliver 22,000 new jobs and 10,000 new homes. It is hoped it will generate a £1.6 billion annual boost to the regional economy.
Scroll down to see what the project looks like currently,
