The new buildings at University station in Birmingham will be open to passengers from Sunday.

The station on the Cross City line opened in 1978, and was designed for 500,000 passengers a year. Since then, Birmingham University has grown, while the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital was opened near the University on the same site in Edgbaston in 2010.

The station, which has been managing with the original entrance, now handles as many as 3.5 million passengers a year. The 1978 building will remain in use as an exit.

The new buildings are designed to cater for up to 7.2 million people each year, with wider entrances, stairways and exits, more open space, lifts to the platforms, a larger ticket office and other improvements. The main pavilion building also includes space for a café or convenience shop, which is due to be announced soon, and an NHS centre on the first floor.

Sunday’s opening will follow a complex three-year construction programme during which the station remained open. The project included installing new bridges over the railway and the Birmingham to Worcester canal. The new station includes two buildings, or pavilions, one of which is built on the island between the railway and the canal, and for which materials had to be delivered by crane.

The first stage of the development included longer and wider platforms, complete with new canopies, which were ready for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the city.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said: ‘Given the millions of people a year the University of Birmingham and QE Hospital collectively draw in, it’s been clear for some time that a new fit-for-purpose station was needed. So I’m pleased that finally, despite the sometimes less than ideal pace of progress, we can unveil the new station.

‘From the outset, the project team have involved partners at the University of Birmingham and the NHS in a collaborative approach that has ensured the building has been designed and delivered to meet their needs.

‘It’s good news that we now have a superb gateway for thousands of people arriving at University every day – no longer having to queue on stairs and funnel through what was a fairly tiny building on their way to lectures or hospital appointments. This is a high-quality facility that will serve local people in the months and years ahead.’