Camosun College has begun construction on its new health and sciences building, tentatively named the Centre for Health and Wellness, located at the Interurban campus.
Construction of the building is being funded by the federal government, the provincial government, and Camosun. The provincial government is paying $31 million, the college is paying $5 million, and the federal government is paying $12.5 million, with a catch: the shell of the building must be finished before the federal funding expires in May 2018.
Camosun dean of health and human services Cynthia Smith believes that the provincial funding will remain intact even if the provincial government changes leadership. The federal funding, however, has an expiry date on it, so the college needs to move fast on construction.
“The provincial funding is committed, and I believe a new government would honour that,” says Smith. “Part of the reason we’re moving so fast on the building is due to the federal funding. We have to have the shell of the building up by May of 2018. But all of the provincial funding will remain in place.”
Smith acknowledges that the timeline for the building is very tight, but she feels confident in the team—and the time—that they have.
“It’s a fast-track process, but we have a very strong team keeping us on track. The building has been in the making for 20 years; there’s been a lot of work done already, and we continue to engage with students and the community,” says Smith. “We won’t be in the building until 2019; that gives us a lot of time to make sure we have something that students need and something that they will hopefully want to hang out in. I’m not concerned about the speed.”
With a new building and an influx of students being moved from Lansdowne to attend classes in that building, there will be a lot more traffic coming to Interurban. Smith says that there are plans in place for a new parking lot.
“Currently,” she says, “we have plans to add in a parking lot that should have about 250 parking stalls for students.” (Smith says that the parking lot will be located behind and to the east side of the new building, bordering the road; it will be monitored by Robbins Parking.)
But Camosun College Student Society external executive Rachael Grant says that she isn’t sure if 250 new parking spaces at the campus will be enough.
“Ideally, they would develop the resources of the Interurban campus to meet the incoming demand,” says Grant. “Lansdowne doesn’t have space to develop but Interurban has a lot of room to grow. In response to the larger number of students going there, ideally, it would be good for [the college] to create more parking. I feel like the 250 stalls they’ve set out for might not be enough to meet the already high demand for parking at Interurban.”
Grant adds that there is concern about the rushed construction of the building in order to meet the requirements for the $12.5 million federal funding.
“There is a risk that, because of the reality of the funding, things won’t be done as well as they could’ve been with the construction,” says Grant.