Dalhousie University’s board of governors approved an ambitious $600-million roadmap for developing the school’s campus yesterday.
Jeff Lamb, assistant vice-president of facilities management, said the “conceptual plan” is like the municipality’s HRM by Design, and that individual projects would still have to be approved by the board.
Ideas like partially pedestrianizing University Avenue would require city co-operation, as HRM owns the road.
Lamb said “it’s a vision of what the physical campus needs to look like” to support a growing student population. “The idea is, here’s the direction we have to take … in the next, roughly, 10 years.”
That would potentially include tearing down the Studley Gym and some of the older wooden buildings and adding a dozen capital projects, including two 20-storey towers at the Carleton campus. The projected cost if the university decides to do everything outlined in the plan is $600 million.
Lamb said Dalhousie spent $100 million on construction and maintenance this fiscal year.
The money would come from a range of sources, including tuition fees, but Lamb said it wouldn’t directly cause an increase for students.
