| |
Posted Nov 3, 2012, 9:53 AM
|
 |
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Windsor, On.
Posts: 1,874
|
|
Here is a recent article talking about the opening of the new downtown St. Clair student centre {St. Clair College TD Success Centre) located in the former TD Bank building at Victoria & University. Apparently the college is looking to aquire more property in the downtown core.
source: http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/11/02/st-clair-unveils-new-downtown-student-centre/
Quote:
St. Clair College hopes to take over another downtown building
Another downtown building is being targeted for a St. Clair College takeover, with hope for at least a couple of hundred more students coming into the core by next fall.
The college is looking for the city to donate the unidentified building, according to college president John Strasser, who hopes the city and college can hammer out a deal in the coming weeks.
“We already know where the building is, it’s just a matter of having the right deal,” Strasser said.
The deal needs to be done by around Christmas so the students in a particular program can start using it next fall, said the president, speaking after the unveiling of the college’s latest downtown addition, the TD Student Success Centre, a former TD Bank building at University and Victoria avenues.
Donated by TD and renovated and furnished for between $750,000 and $1 million, it provides 87 computer terminals, a cozy upstairs lounge, a kitchen, tutoring space and meeting rooms for the 1,000 college students already located in the core.
They are located in buildings also provided by the city – its former Cleary Centre (now the St. Clair College for the Arts) and the former Salvation Army building (now the MediaPlex) at University and Victoria.
The student centre is something Strasser wanted ever since he first contemplated a downtown campus more than five years ago.
“And it’s just part of it, it’s not the end of it, with the university coming on board (the U of W is bringing about 1,500 students and faculty to three renovated downtown buildings by 2014), and the college looking for more places in the downtown area,” he said.
The total number of students in the downtown will reach well over 2,000, which Strasser believes is the “critical mass” needed to kickstart downtown revitalization as shops, restaurants and housing flood in to service those new customers.
“Once you get past that 2,000, it’ll explode by itself, I truly believe it will,” he said.
Mayor Eddie Francis confirmed he and Strasser have been working on a deal. “We’re not there yet, we’re getting close,” he said.
He also wouldn’t identify the building the college wants.
“We do own some space, that space is something the college has looked at and I’ve now heard back from the college this morning,” he said Friday. “So I’ve got some work to do on my end. We’ll get there.”
What building the city and college are talking about is a bit of a puzzler to downtown watchers. In the area around the educational cluster that includes the college’s St. Clair Centre and MediaPlex, and the university’s future locales – the Windsor Star building, the downtown armouries and the former Greyhound station- the only nearby city-owned buildings they could think of are parking garages with retail space on the ground floor.
Other possibilities are either farther afield (the main library branch, city hall, the downtown Enwin building) or owned by other levels of government, such as the federally owned property at 441 University Ave. W. and the federal Paul Martin Building, which Strasser said is not being considered.
But downtown business improvement association president Larry Horwitz said if the two sides can work out a downtown deal, “I’m 100 per cent behind the city giving them any building they own.”
More students and faculty creates a buzz and increases pedestrian traffic, he said.
“It’s extremely important that they do this because the downtown has been known as a party town, sin city, a place you go to get drunk, and this is one of the most dynamic, most important changes to the fabric to the downtown.”
The city should fill up every building it has with students, he said. “We’ll go from a sin community to a smart community that easy.”
With about 1,000 students in the core already, Horwitz said there’s already been a gradual flow of small businesses opening up recently, including a women’s resale shop, a juice shop, a cafe, a jewelry store and a burger joint. The BIA loses money when the college moves into a building previously occupied by a business because the college doesn’t pay a BIA levy, he said.
“But what we get in return – pedestrian traffic, shoppers, residential, a reason for people to open up shop – more than compensates.”
The students arrived about five years ago, and have now surpassed 30,000 student months, Strasser said. “I believe that’s a significant boost to the city’s core.”
Francis recalled sitting down with Strasser, U of W president Alan Wildeman and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan when they were initially planning this downtown education cluster by moving tacks around on a downtown map.
Now you can look to the north (from the student centre) and see the MediaPlex, and to the east to see the revitalized Capitol Theatre, the soon-to-be renovated armouries, and the new home of the Windsor Star at Ouellette and University.
“You can see the vision now coming to life,” the mayor said. “And that vision was made possible because of the college.”
|
When the university opens it's 3 new downtown locations in the next few years there is going to be quite a significant surge of students in the core.
|
|
|
Prev
Linear Mode
