[Halifax] Dalhousie University - Bold Ambitions | ? m | ? fl | Vision
 

As mentioned in allnovascotia.com, Dalhousie has raised $170 million dollars of their $250 million dollar goal towards their Bold Ambitions campaign. $100 million of this will go towards capital projects:
(source: allnovascotia.com)
- $50 million - 100,000 square foot Inter-Professional Health Education at Carlton Campus in Halifax, set to start in about a year.
- $20 million for an Innovation and Design Building at the Sexton Campus in Halifax that begins construction this spring (the Sexton Campus is to the south west of Spring Garden Road and Barrington Street).
- $20 million dollar expansion of the Dalplex set to start in about 3 years.
- $10 million dollar expansion wing of the Dalhousie Art Centre which houses the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
- $4 million dollar expansion of the Life Science Centre.

More details can be seen here:
- http://boldambitions.dal.ca/cmsdocum...ties_Dec09.pdf
- http://boldambitions.dal.ca/news-bol...s-kickoff.html
- http://boldambitions.dal.ca/enriched...xperience.html
- http://campusplan.dal.ca/index.php

Some of these are shown below: (source: this is a 44 MB file so it will take a few seconds to open - http://campusplan.dal.ca/Files/Dalho...5209-14-10.pdf ). Some of the projects in the master plan are not planned to start for several years.
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/3...newexterio.jpg

Interesting, I knew about the IDEA building but the rest of that stuff is new to me.

Great news. I didn't know they were planning to start on some of those so soon. I can't wait to see the IDEA building go up. It will look really great right next to the new library.

Between Dal and SMU there is a lot of money being spent on campus renewal.
SMU just added the Atrium, and is in the process of renovating the library, Mcnally main, Mcnally north, and Mcnally south, the steel frame is also up for the new building extension for the tower.

They're changing the facade of the Killam!?!? Nooooo!! I love that place the way it is, it's such a unique part of Halifax's architectural landscape!

Interesting.. I didn't see all the documents, but from the rendering I saw it's my impression that the IDEA building is planned for the Infirmary lands at the terminus of Clyde Street. I thought Dalhousie was planning to build at the corner of Morris.

If that is true the building would complement the library nicely, although I'm hoping that giant block will also get some new residential.

In general this expansion looks good to me. I'd like to see Dal move up about half a notch in scale to the point where it's closer to the bigger research schools.

This is very ambitious and means a lot of construction work to come. Which means, lots of crains and good paying construction jobs created for a long period. I'm all for this.

Cool website I found with info on all the buildings built by dal, includes some cool construction shots.

- http://www.library.dal.ca/duasc/buildings/list.htm

All this work on the Dalhousie campus is going to be great! As a student there, it will be exciting to watch it occur (and if I can figure out how to post pics, I'll be able to provide photos of the construction).

They're already almost finished renovating the front grass area of the Henry Hicks building.

As far as the Killam is concerned, it's about time something was done with its (in my opinion) hideous facade. The atrium inside has such an open feeling and a glass facade vs. concrete will open it up even more.

The Killam exterior has a certain appeal but it's not attractive and I think most can agree that the atrium is a more interesting component of the building. I also like some other parts of the interior like the main staircase. I hope those elements are preserved.

Looks like the IDEA building is set well back from the street... that's a little less interesting. I hope the Morris and Queen building happens relatively soon. The sea of parking lots is getting old.

I think the primary concept for the IDEA building is to physically link the Architecture and Engineering departments - which is what was the initial intention with the Architecture Building extension (BML installed a door meant to link it to the Mechanical Engineering building but it never materialized). So I think that's why it's set back from the street to where those buildings are. That lot is part of that Three Sisters development anyway, isn't it?

I participated heavily in the last campus plan in 1990 as an undergrad. Learned a lot. Some of what was planned then was built, but really less than 25% of that plan ever happened.

I see a lot of that plan informing Bold Ambitions, but I am not convinced all this will happen any time soon. Some of it is long delayed, renewal of existing buildings (LSC, Killam) and spaces (Lower Quad) but, you know, fact is that undergraduate enrollment is projected to drop for the next 15-20 years due to demographics, while at the same time we are trying to deal with the retirement of the baby boomers.

I wonder if the money can be raised for something this grand.

On the other hand, Dal had what, 475 students in 1945, and 4000 in 1975, so it has proven again and again that it can grow and increase demand against all odds, so maybe I will be surprised!

According to Wikipedia, Dal is up to nearly 17,000 students. I think this is somewhat higher than when I went there (2002-2007). Dalhousie is a fairly well-known school and many of its students are from out of province, so local demographics don't necessarily have much of an impact on the student population. Note that 20 years ago there were also predictions that Halifax's population was going to languish around the 300,000 range -- this kind of thing has perennially been predicted yet has never happened. My prediction is that the city will continue to grow at about the same rate as it has grown for the past 260 years and that Dalhousie will continue to expand at a similar or greater pace.

Lately there's been a fair amount of construction at the university and I think it generally followed the plan from the 90s. The CS building, FASS, and Management are examples of this (not sure about the building on Coburg or LSRI). Now that most of the empty space along University Avenue is gone it makes sense that they're starting to look at the main quad, the giant empty lot next to the Dunn building, etc.

$170 million has already been raised (I was quite amazed by that number). Not all of it is for construction though.

Attracting students from foreign countries and other parts of Canada will be good for Dalhousie University and some of them might decide to stay in the Halifax area.

LeMarchant looks like will be starting construction in Dec.Seven floors in total. One floor for stores, one floor for offices and 5 for tenants. Demo of the row of houses should be in Oct/Nov.

Thanks for all of the updates.

I like how this building will have some commercial space. Dal's just a little too far from Quinpool or Spring Garden for those to be convenient places to walk to every day. Hopefully the location will be successful. It seems reasonably well-located since it's next to the SUB and buses.

This was the reason I came out of lurk mode on this forum...a year or so ago. About time, but I may not be in the neighbourhood much longer.

Looks like the Collaborative Health Education Building has been scaled back since the previous rendering. Below is the new one, the architects are Barrie & Langille Architects of Halifax in association with Moriyama & Teshima and it is slated to open Fall 2015.
http://www.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhou...EB-Feb2013.jpg
Source: Dal

Sad to hear about the Killam re-clad. That was one of the best brutatlist buildings in the nation.