The Associated Students held its grand opening Friday for the new Wildcat Leadership Center on the second floor of the Bell Memorial Union.

The new space will serve as office space for A.S. officers and is open for students to study.

“I want students to come to our space,” said Jovan Smith, A.S. vice president of facilities and services. “Enjoy us, utilize us, come do homework here, come hangout and come meet friends, people like me and everyone else who works here.”

The space was previously used as an extended part of the Wildcat bookstore before the A.S. decided to move it downstairs.

“About two years ago the bookstore was forced, in essence, to move downstairs cause we were losing a lot of sales so we had all this space,” said David Buckley, the executive director of the A.S. administration office. “We started having discussions about what would be a useful way to use this space and ultimately how do we best serve students.”

Approximately $600,000 was spent on the construction, Buckley said.

The construction finished over the summer and opened in July, Smith said.

There was a raffle drawing for prizes and activities for people to get to know student government officers from various organizations such as Greek life, Student Life and Leadership and Government Affairs.

Chico State President Paul Zingg attended the grand opening as well as CC Carter, director of the Cross Cultural Leadership Center.

Anna Sobreviñas can be reached at [email protected] or @manilanna on Twitter.