Thomas van Aquinostraat 1 is closing its doors. Departments have to relocate before the end of this year, a measure intended to help Radboud University save money.

The last building on the once iconic Thomas van Aquinostraat will also soon disappear. TvA 1 must be vacated by January 2026, as apparent from emails from Campus & Facilities to the various users of the building.

The building houses several departments, including Radboud Events, the Honours Academy, the Teaching and Learning Centre, the University Student Council, as well as Vox. Last week, the organisations were told that they have to leave the building ‘at the end of the year’.

The move is part of the University’s housing strategy and should ensure ‘more efficient use of buildings’, according to an email from Campus & Facilities. ‘Due to the need to save on costs, the building has to be closed earlier than originally planned.’ It is as yet unknown where the organisations will relocate to. Alternative locations will be explored in the coming months.

Whether the building will also be razed in the near future is still unclear. An earlier campus plan did mention demolition, but that plan was shelved due to the multi-million euro budget cuts. If the demolition goes ahead, the last Thomas van Aquinostraat building will also disappear from the campus. Buildings numbers 2 to 8 were already demolished earlier to make way for the brand-new Maria Montessori building, which was inaugurated in 2021 by the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Honours Academy staff were informed of the impending move on Tuesday morning. ‘The news came as a surprise. We don’t know at the moment where we will end up,’ says programme director Casper Kirkels. ‘Does this cause unrest? At our department, we have other problems at the moment,’ he says, referring to the Executive Board’s proposed decision to dismantle the Honours Academy.

Unpleasantly surprised

The Honours Academy has been housed in TvA 1 for the past two years. ‘At the time, we were looking for a more central location on campus, among the students and lecturers,’ says Kirkels. He says TvA 1 is a very pleasant building: nice and old-fashioned, not yet open-plan space only. ‘Architecturally, Thomas van Aquinostraat was a great response to the Erasmus high-rise building. It is a pity that it will all be gone soon.’

Coordinator of the Teaching & Learning Centre Marit Rensink was informed last week of the intention to close TvA1 at the end of this year. ‘We are unpleasantly surprised that it all has to happen at such short notice,’ she says.

Later this week, she is meeting with a Campus & Facilities staff member about the future location of the Teaching & Learning Centre. ‘It is important for us to be in a visible location where people can easily walk in.’

Community function

At Radboud Events, people are less shocked. ‘We’ve known for some time that we would have to move to the Berchmanianum on 1 October,’ says Patrick Leijzer. Will he miss the building? ‘I always thought it was a nice building, right in the middle of the campus. We moved here in preparation for the University’s anniversary year (in 2023, Radboud University celebrated its 100th anniversary, eds.), when we organised lots of extra activities. The only downside is that it can get very hot in summer.’

Kirkels of the Honours Academy does understand the need to let go of buildings. ‘But we have to be aware of what this does to people,’ he says. ‘If more and more people start working from home, it will affect the community function of the university. I hope people give careful thought to where we end up.’