{"id":11478,"date":"2016-01-06T06:18:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T14:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11478"},"modified":"2016-01-11T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T20:05:06","slug":"multi-million-dollar-young-building-repairs-remain-camosun-college-priority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/01\/06\/multi-million-dollar-young-building-repairs-remain-camosun-college-priority\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-million-dollar Young Building repairs remain Camosun College priority"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Young Building is one of Camosun College\u2019s most well-known landmarks, but it\u2019s been in a state of disrepair for several years.<\/p>\n

Students are unable to walk around the building, and there are canopies and large cement blocks surrounding it. These additions are there for the safety of those walking near Young, as concerns popped up after the last major renovation the college had done on the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most significant exterior upgrade was completed in 2000,\u201d says Camosun director of facilities services Ian Tol. \u201cBasically the entire facade of the building was pulled off, and you were only able to see columns and a roof; everything else was wide open, and all the walls were rebuilt at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

After these restorations were complete, the building was given heritage status. But parts of the exterior of the building began to deteriorate, with some small pieces falling off. It was at this point that the school erected the fence around the building and canopies over the entrances that are still there today.<\/p>\n

\"Camosun\u2019s<\/a>
Camosun\u2019s Young Building has temporary structures set up around it (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThose canopies are intended to be temporary; they\u2019re here to ensure safety for the users,\u201d says Tol. \u201cOur long-term goal is to fix the building. That would allow us to remove the canopies, but until we get to that point they have to stay up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tol says a rough estimate to fix the building is over $10 million. In addition to this, the school is caught up in litigation with Farmer Construction, the company that worked on the parts of the building that Camosun claims are failing prematurely.<\/p>\n

Farmer Construction declined to comment to Nexus<\/i> for this story.<\/p>\n

For the time being, Camosun has a contractor, Ken Johnson, examine the building twice a year to ensure that it is still safe, and to remove anything that is a potential threat. Johnson is a heritage conservationist who tells Nexus<\/i> that after 10 examinations he\u2019s noticed the state of the Young Building get worse.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s initial report details the problems with the Young Building. It points out corroding steel, failing bonding, a window sill with a 1.5\u201d gap on it, cracks in the moulding, a piece of the building that sounds loose and hollow, a window sill that is loose and moving, and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful building as a whole. Camosun obviously values it very highly,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cIt would have been far easier for them to tear it down in 1999 and start again, but the building had such value to them that they decided to restore it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun Nursing student Heather Hulett says she likes the building and hopes it\u2019s repaired soon because it\u2019s an inconvenience as is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe place where they\u2019ve blocked the exit sucks,\u201d says Hulett. \u201cWe have to go all the way around to get outside. Also, I used to sit on those steps to study because it overlooks the lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Siobhan Strain, also a Nursing student, says that safety needs to come first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more important to have the scaffolding up than the looks of the building itself,\u201d says Strain, who describes Young as having a Hogwarts feel to it (Hogwarts is the school of magic in the Harry Potter<\/i> series). \u201cIf it\u2019s unsafe, then they should definitely be making it safe for people walking underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with an estimated $10 million price tag and an ongoing legal situation surrounding it, Camosun\u2019s Tol says that getting the Young Building\u2019s repairs dealt with is a priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cFixing it is quite high on our priority list. It\u2019s a building that we need, we are using it fully, and we don\u2019t have other vacant space,\u201d says Tol. \u201cThe Young Building is a heritage building and kind of a beautiful structure, so I agree that the canopies are definitely not something we want to keep on there. We\u2019ll continue to monitor the condition of the building to ensure that it remains safe for use, and as long as it\u2019s safe we\u2019ll continue to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Young Building is one of Camosun College\u2019s most well-known landmarks, but it\u2019s been in a state of disrepair for several years. Students are unable to walk around the building, and there are canopies and large cement blocks surrounding it. These additions are there for the safety of those walking near Young, as concerns popped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-january-6-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11541,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions\/11541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}