The proliferation of high street bars with their drinks deals and
promotions is directly affecting students’ union bars around the
country. However, there are ways to compete and become the first
choice for students. The newly opened bars at Newcastle Students’
Union are a fantastic example.
Multi-million Pound Refurbishment
The proliferation of high street bars with their drinks deals and
promotions is directly affecting students’ union bars around the
country. However, there are ways to compete and become the first
choice for students. The newly opened bars at Newcastle Students’
Union are a fantastic example.
An £8 million refurbishment of the main
building, which began in November
2010, has transformed the interior
of one of the University’s most iconic
buildings and significantly improved
services for students. The building
work saw all six floors given a full
refurbishment and new facilities added.
The Union building hosts both the
225 capacity Mens bar and 1200
capacity Venue bars to cater for
students day and night, all requiring
a variety of both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.
Bringing the ideas together
KCM Catering Equipment, one of the nominated contractors for specially negotiated NUSSL contract
pricing for the IMC range of stainless steel modular bars, was asked by the Capital Developments team at
Newcastle University to design a layout for each of the bar areas to reflect its individual use. KCM attended
an initial design meeting along with IMC and representatives from the University and Students’ Union
and, through its team of experienced designers, put together initial concepts for the bar equipment. CAD
layouts for each of the designs were produced, making it easy for the concepts to be understood.
Each of the bar areas needed to provide workstations
suitable for the use and volume of the venue. The
flexibility of the IMC Bartender system allows the
design of the bar to satisfy all operational and product
requirements. Using this flexibility the concepts were
tuned to meet the Students’ Union needs and budgets,
ensuring that everything needed by each member of bar
staff is no more than one or two paces away
KCM Catering Equipment’s team in conjunction with the
project’s main contractor BAM Construction on the bar areas,
with 50m of Bartender modules, 33 bottle coolers, 4 glass
washers and a large capacity ice machine being installed in
a single week.
Integration of the installation into the main contractors programme of works was critical with KCM winning praise for its project focus. James Adshead, Senior Project Manager at Newcastle University stated “KCM were very helpful in the design stages, offering very useful experience, which helped bring the project to completion on time. On site they were well organised and worked well within a larger more complicated refurbishment. Overall the service was excellent.”
Integration of the installation into the main contractors programme of works was critical with KCM winning praise for its project focus. James Adshead, Senior Project Manager at Newcastle University stated “KCM were very helpful in the design stages, offering very useful experience, which helped bring the project to completion on time. On site they were well organised and worked well within a larger more complicated refurbishment. Overall the service was excellent.”