April 22, 2008

$150M expansion at University of Ottawa

University of Ottawa releases plans for 15-storey tower at downtown campus

KORKY KOROLUK

Correspondent

Ottawa

Already overcrowded, and with 4,000 to 6,000 new students expected in the next year or two, the University of Ottawa has decided it’s full speed ahead on expansion of its facilities.

The most recent announcement is for a new 15-storey tower for its downtown campus, to be built at a cost of about $90 million.

It’s just part of a building plan that is to cost about $150 million by 2011.

The plans originally included several smaller renovations, but Victor Simon, vice-president of resources for the university, said it was decided to build the new tower instead.

He also said that while no design has yet been done, the building should be finished by 2011.

The building will provide 236,000 square feet of classrooms and lecture halls, and will house a language institute and the social sciences faculty, which is growing rapidly.

Another project announced last week as part of the school’s growth is a $32-million expansion of its medical school on the Smyth Road campus, southeast of the downtown core. It is adjacent to the Ottawa Hospital’s General campus.

That project will provide a new training clinic, larger classrooms and laboratories, and will accommodate students in medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, audiology and speech therapy. The new space will total 50,000 square feet, and is to be finished by 2010.

Four other projects were announced.

•The $10 million completion by next year of the expansion of the faculty of education.

•An $8-million renovation of space on the Smyth Road campus that once housed the Ottawa Life Sciences Council.

•A $5 million renovation of five buildings totalling 19,500 square feet, that the university acquired from Algonquin College last year.

•$5 million in design work, beginning next year, on the first stage of a multi-phase expansion of the university’s law school.

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