An architect's rendering depicts the downtown performing arts project.

Two campus events next week will give the Brock community a fresh glimpse of the ambitious project to relocate the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts to downtown St Catharines.

There will be two open house sessions held Wednesday, Oct. 19 in the lobby of the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. The first event will be 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It will be repeated in a second session from 3 to 4:30 p.m.

Lead architect Michael Leckman, of the renowned Canadian firm Diamond + Schmitt Architects, will be on hand to offer an update on the project and to answer questions. He will be joined by Douglas Kneale, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and a member of the committee overseeing the project.

The meetings will reveal a new set of architect’s renderings, giving an unprecedented sense of how the project will turn a vacant 19th-century textile mill into a key piece of one of Canada’s most striking urban transitions.

The new home of the Walker School is part of a collaboration between the University and the City of St. Catharines, which will be building a new municipal Performing Arts Centre beside the Brock complex.

To convenience the St. Catharines-Niagara community, the presentation will also be made at an open house on Oct. 26 in the Market Square in downtown St. Catharines from 5 to 7 p.m.

Construction of the project is to begin in 2012, with a completion target of 2014. For more information, visit buildingtheartsdowntown.ca

What: Open House sessions for the new downtown Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
When: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 11 a.m to 12:30 p.m. and 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Sean O’Sullivan Theatre lobby