Fanshawe heads downtown
Fanshawe's $40-million project
creating a downtown campus has
people talking.
The downtown campus became a serious consideration last year when Fanshawe presented the idea to the city. The city approved the idea, and agreed to grant the school $10 million over the course of the next 10 years. The $10 million will not come out of taxpayers' pockets, as it is already included in the city's budget.
What was originally a $30-million project turned into $40 million, as the school plans to buy heritage buildings and restore them as part of their new campus. Howard Rundle, president of Fanshawe College, said the "government funds us; they do not fund money to buy heritage buildings. They want the cheapest possible."
This will be part of London's downtown revitalization plan. So much has been done already, such as Covenant Gardens, the John Labatt Centre, restaurants, condominiums and more.
"Downtown London is starting to emerge from the ashes," Rundle said, but added, "There are still lots of underutilized, half-empty or totally empty buildings ... But we think it's returned enough and there's momentum now that if we did this, it would attract a whole lot more, and this is just what's needed to kick it over the edge and have the core of the city come back to the way it was when everybody went there."
"We don't want a campus in the middle of a depressed core of the city."
The downtown campus will focus on hosting arts programs and specialty programs such as theatre of the performing arts, theatre production, costume design, digital media, culinary arts and broadcasting.
Rundle said there are two reasons behind the motivation to create this downtown campus, the first being that the new performance arts program currently has no facility on the campus.
"(In addition,) our hotel management program really thought it would be great if they owned a small hotel so they could run it in the same way our culinary students run Saffron's here on campus." The hope is that further down the line, once Fanshawe has cemented its place downtown London, they can buy a small hotel and have the hospitality management students run it.
The campus will also provide opportunity for the performing arts by hosting shows and attracting people to come to events.
The downtown Fanshawe campus was originally located in the Galleria Mall, before it became the Citi Plaza, and there was room for potential expansion. But now that it has become a business centre, Fanshawe cannot expand nor afford the rent space any longer.
The next step is for the board of directors to allocate $6 million of capitol money that they have accumulated over the years to this project that will allow the first phase of this program to happen right away.
"This is the last step," said Rundle. "If the city approves this, then we can leap into action tomorrow."
If all goes as planned, the first classes in the new downtown campus, entitled Fanshawe's School for Applied and Performance Arts, will commence in 2012.
The downtown campus became a serious consideration last year when Fanshawe presented the idea to the city. The city approved the idea, and agreed to grant the school $10 million over the course of the next 10 years. The $10 million will not come out of taxpayers' pockets, as it is already included in the city's budget.
What was originally a $30-million project turned into $40 million, as the school plans to buy heritage buildings and restore them as part of their new campus. Howard Rundle, president of Fanshawe College, said the "government funds us; they do not fund money to buy heritage buildings. They want the cheapest possible."
This will be part of London's downtown revitalization plan. So much has been done already, such as Covenant Gardens, the John Labatt Centre, restaurants, condominiums and more.
"Downtown London is starting to emerge from the ashes," Rundle said, but added, "There are still lots of underutilized, half-empty or totally empty buildings ... But we think it's returned enough and there's momentum now that if we did this, it would attract a whole lot more, and this is just what's needed to kick it over the edge and have the core of the city come back to the way it was when everybody went there."
"We don't want a campus in the middle of a depressed core of the city."
The downtown campus will focus on hosting arts programs and specialty programs such as theatre of the performing arts, theatre production, costume design, digital media, culinary arts and broadcasting.
Rundle said there are two reasons behind the motivation to create this downtown campus, the first being that the new performance arts program currently has no facility on the campus.
"(In addition,) our hotel management program really thought it would be great if they owned a small hotel so they could run it in the same way our culinary students run Saffron's here on campus." The hope is that further down the line, once Fanshawe has cemented its place downtown London, they can buy a small hotel and have the hospitality management students run it.
The campus will also provide opportunity for the performing arts by hosting shows and attracting people to come to events.
The downtown Fanshawe campus was originally located in the Galleria Mall, before it became the Citi Plaza, and there was room for potential expansion. But now that it has become a business centre, Fanshawe cannot expand nor afford the rent space any longer.
The next step is for the board of directors to allocate $6 million of capitol money that they have accumulated over the years to this project that will allow the first phase of this program to happen right away.
"This is the last step," said Rundle. "If the city approves this, then we can leap into action tomorrow."
If all goes as planned, the first classes in the new downtown campus, entitled Fanshawe's School for Applied and Performance Arts, will commence in 2012.
