TBS Education business school invests 120 million euros in a new campus in Toulouse
Posted 18Jul. 2022 at 14:00
After ten years of research, Toulouse Business School (TBS Education) is building its new campus at the end of the year, which will open in September 2026. All services will be grouped together on the same site, while the school is currently split into five buildings, including one on the outskirts of Toulouse. After supposedly going to the site of the former Saint-Michel prison and the former Ensica aeronautical school, she set her sights on land in Toulouse Métropole in the Compans-Caffarelli district, 500 meters from its current seat. The construction of the campus involves the destruction of the small sports hall and the school opens in compensation its gymnasium to associations and to the district high school.
“We wanted to stay in the city center because it is a key success factor for a business school, explains the general manager, Stéphanie Lavigne. We stay in the student area next to the university of economics, management and political science. On this landlocked plot of 6,000 square meters, TBS will build a large building with 7 floors and a basement level, with a surface area of 31,500 square meters (compared to a total of 34,000 m² today). The density of construction worries local residents and the school has opened a consultation on access flows.
Pedagogical innovation
The Portuguese architecture firm Francisco Aire Mateus has designed a large white stone building with an atrium, roof terraces and large side openings. With its piped heating and cooling system, the campus won the “NoWatt building” call for projects from the Occitanie region, which awarded a grant of 6.5 million euros. It will be able to accommodate 4,000 students simultaneously and will have a large spherical and modular amphitheater.
This unique campus will foster relationships between teachers and students. “We had fallen behind the other schools in terms of premises,” says Stéphanie Lavigne. On the new site, we will have more space for student associations, the incubator, sport and business reception. Even though the school has had the 4Digital label since 2019, the construction of the campus provides an opportunity to increase educational and digital equipment and improve the layout of the rooms. The development of telework during Covid-19 encourages the school “to reserve face-to-face lectures for things of high quality”. TBS Education is working on educational innovation and is banking on the new campus to improve the ranking of its Grande Ecole program, which is between 10th and 12th.
The campus will cost 120 million euros including the purchase of land from the metropolis (14 million). In 2016, the school took on the autonomous status of Consular Higher Education Establishment but failed to open its capital to companies. The CCI, its sole shareholder, gave it 10 million euros of equity and the Entiore building of the bachelor program in Quint-Fonsegrives, worth 17 million euros, which it will resell, to enable it to obtain bank loans.
TBS Education will also open in September its new Barcelona campus of 8,000 square meters, in a location three times larger than the current one, which will increase from 700 to 1,200 students. She is also looking for a bigger place in Casablanca. Also based in Paris, the school has 6,000 students and 125 permanent teachers, compared to 82 in 2014. It achieved a turnover of 58 million euros in 2021, 85% with initial training.