College seeking $1 million from city for new building
Durham College is seeking $1 million from the city for its Centre for Collaborative Education. The site, which broke ground in late 2016, is set to open next year.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
When it’s completed, Durham College says the building will transform the streetscape of Simcoe Street North, and they’re looking for help from the city to make that happen.
Don Lovisa, the president of the college, recently visited the city’s finance committee to request a helping hand in the form of a $1-million donation to assist in the contruction of the new Centre for Collaborative Education.
The building, which has received support from both federal and provincial governments, is set to replace the campus’ aging Simcoe Building, the oldest structure at the college.
The project recently broke ground and has received $35 million in support already – $22 million of it coming from the province and $13 million from the feds – for the approximately $40-million project. The college has been tasked with coming up with the remaining $5 million. Most recently, it received $250,000 from the school’s alumni association.
The new building will include a business incubator space, classrooms for the college’s health programs that will support the new behavioural science and pharmacy program, as well as space for the college’s Global Class initiative that connects students to other learners and professors from around the world. It’s set for completion next year.
“There are huge opportunities for the city to be named within this building,” Lovisa says. “The benefits are clear, you’ve seen the advancement of education in our community.”
The college received high praise from the committee members, but little in the form of a financial commitment.
“We are so pleased with what Durham College is doing,” said Councillor John Aker.
It was a sentiment shared by fellow councillor Nancy Diamond.
“(We are) so proud of the college and you do such an extraordinary job of preparing young people for the real world,” she said.
The matter was referred to council’s budget deliberations set to get underway later this month.
The request from the college follows on the heels of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, which visited the finance committee requesting $10 million over the next decade to support the university’s future growth.
That matter was also referred to budget deliberations.