Simon Fraser University opens new medical school in Surrey's Centre Block

SURREY · Simon Fraser University will open its new medical school in Surrey, B.C., in 2030, welcoming its first class of future primary-care doctors. The SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine will be housed in a 12-storey building that anchors the Centre Block development near Surrey Central Station. The school aims to help address a nationwide doctor shortage by training more family-medicine practitioners. The development is part of Surrey's push to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population. The medical school will occupy seven floors of the mixed-use building, which will also feature retail space at ground level and four floors of office space for the City of Surrey. The building sits on the former site of the North Surrey Recreation Centre, which was demolished in 2025, and is adjacent to the existing SFU Surrey campus. "This site is an integral part to connecting that urban landscape together, as well as the bus and the SkyTrain transit systems to create a real active node and a sense of community," said Darren Burns, vice-president of design and innovation for buildings at Stantec, the project's architect-of-record.

The Centre Block project is expected to add roughly two million square feet of office and retail space to Surrey's city centre. Bill Aujla, president and chief executive of the Surrey City Development Corp., said the development brings higher education, health care, research, office and retail space together on one site. "That mix is what turns a city centre into a true downtown," Aujla said. Surrey's population has been growing by an average of 10,877 people per year over the past five years, largely due to immigration, and the city is projected to have 783,690 residents by 2041.

The new medical school building will include high-tech classrooms, research spaces, administrative offices and a 49-space child-care centre. A publicly accessible family outpatient clinic will occupy the second floor, incorporating educational training and community health services. Peter Hall, vice-provost and associate vice-president of academics at SFU, said the university saw the need for a medical school focused on family practice and primary care. According to the Canadian Medical Association, more than one in five Canadians do not have a family doctor or nurse practitioner they see regularly.

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The SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine is Western Canada's first new medical school since the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine was founded in 1967. Hall said the Surrey campus has been fragmented until now and the new building should provide a sense of identity, cohesion and integration. He pointed to Britain's University of London as a model for integrating civic and business communities. "The University of London prides itself on being halfway between the old commercial city of London and Westminster and acting as an integration point between commerce and government," Hall said.

The building's design features stacked forms resembling a Jenga game and includes an open atrium surrounded by multilevel gathering places. Indigenous student spaces are incorporated, with the design team engaging Indigenous knowledge keepers and a steering committee. "We have an Indigenous consultant on our team to help with that engagement and to help with reaching out to the community," Burns said. The structure is designed to be activated at street level to feel connected to the community.

As the urban campus grows, Hall hopes the university can secure funding for additional student services like health and wellness programs and housing. The Centre Block development supports Surrey's official community plan to create a civic and academic hub. Other ongoing developments in Surrey include the Newton Community Centre and a new 10,000-seat City Centre Arena. The medical school is set to open in 2030.

With files from The Globe and Mail