Look out, London — Fanshawe's expanding its territory.

With the purchase of the Gate Walk townhouses at 900 Fanshawe College Blvd., just across the street from the college, Fanshawe's campus just got a little bigger.

"The location is perfect," said Dr. Howard Rundle, president of the college. "In some ways, it's as good as being right on our campus. The way I describe it is, 'We've just extended our campus that little bit across the street.'"

The mid-February purchase of the property, renamed Kestrel Court by the college, was "opportunistic," according to Rundle. Originally, the company that owned the property, College Gate Walk Housing Inc., wanted to sell a block of four properties, two located in London and two outside of the city. The college was not interested in that deal. When the block of properties did not sell for over a year, representatives from the college approached the property owners to ask if they would be interested in selling the townhouses on Fanshawe College Boulevard. After much discussion and due diligence, the college purchased the townhouses for $10,900,000 on February 15.

The townhouses have space for 400 people, and each unit can house up to six people.

Currently, there are 50 residents living in Kestrel Court who are not Fanshawe students. According to Rundle, the hope is to have the entire property populated only by Fanshawe students by September. "We did say that anybody who has a lease who would like to terminate that lease — stop paying rent and leave — we'll let them," said Rundle. "Then we could start working on those rooms right away. It's not like a residence in that everybody has to be out before you can do something — because they're all townhouses, if one of them emptied, we could be working on that before the summertime."

According to Harry Bakker, the director of facilities management for the college, the units were in reasonably good condition. "For the most part, the majority of repairs needed are cosmetic in nature, including wall repairs to fix blemishes from previous tenant damage and repair attempts, painting and flooring replacement as required."

"The college will be performing major preventive maintenance service on each unit's heating system," added M. Shawn Harrington, manager of facilities planning and development for Fanshawe. "At the same time, each unit's ventilation ductwork will be cleaned. Currently, we have underway the replacement of existing single smoke detectors with three smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in each unit."

Harrington said the college will invest nearly $500,000 into repairing the units, averaging $7,300 per unit, to make the necessary improvements.

In addition to making repairs and improvements, each unit will be outfitted with furniture and appliances, in a manner similar to residences on-campus. "Each will be outfitted with a refrigerator, stove, microwave, dishwasher, washer and dryer," explained Bakker. "Each unit will also be outfitted with common area furniture, including dining table and chairs, living room tables, couches, chairs and a television. Each bedroom suite will be outfitted with a captain's bed (drawers under the bed), a desk and chair."

Because the units are outfitted with kitchen appliances, purchasing a meal plan will not be mandatory for Kestrel Court residents. Rundle posited that this could be a draw for international students who want to cook meals from home, as well as students looking to save money by not having to purchase furniture and a meal plan.

According to Cal Littlejohn, general manager of Fanshawe's residences, Kestrel Court will be operated the same way the three on-campus residences are currently.

"There will be residence advisors throughout the complex," he said. "We'll use the same ratio: one R.A. for every 40 students."

According to Harrington, Fanshawe will upgrade the site's security surveillance system as an additional safety measure for residents.

Historically, these townhouses have had a bad reputation for rowdy parties. Since College Gate Walk Housing Inc. purchased the property in 2006, some measures have been taken to mitigate these problems. "They did care about the problems in the area, more so than the previous owners," said Rundle.

"I'm quite excited about it," he continued. "We would like everybody living in that area living in residences, and now 400 of them will be. If we can expand that in the future, we're interested."

Registration is currently open for September 2011 for all of Fanshawe's residences. For more information about Kestrel Court, or to apply for residence, visit www.fanshawec.ca/residence.