Students endorse Queen's Centre
By Celia Russell
Undergraduate students have
shown their support for the
Queen’s Centre by voting 71
percent in favour of an annual
fee per student that would raise
$25.5 million for the project over
a 15-year period.
The vote took place at the
Alma Mater Society (AMS)
annual general meeting last
Wednesday, with 763 students
casting ballots. For the first five
years, students will contribute
$71 per student, per year, and
$141 for each of the remaining
10 years, until the goal of $25.5
million is reached.
“It’s a really important signal
of confidence and support from
the students,” Principal Karen
Hitchcock told the Gazette.
“We’re very grateful to know that
they are prepared to put this
level of funding toward the project.
“It shows their commitment
to the university beyond the
time they are at Queen’s and that
they are thinking about the students
that are coming after them.
These are the kind of values that
the Queen’s community has held
for the 165 years of the university’s
existence. It’s absolutely
wonderful to see how that spirit
continues.”
The Board of Trustees voted
unanimously March 4 to approve
the Queen’s Centre project in
principle and endorsed moving
from the planning to the implementation
phase of the project.
The centre combines student life,
athletics facilities and a new
home for the School of Physical
and Health Education. It is to be
built in phases over the next 10
years and is estimated to cost
about $230 million.
“Having worked for so long
on the project it’s a real encouragement
to have had the board’s
endorsement of that work a couple
of weeks ago and now the
students’ endorsement,” said
Vice-Principal (Operations and
Finance) Andrew Simpson, who
chairs the Queen’s Centre Management
Committee. “It gives us
tremendous confidence in all of
the work completed by so many
throughout the university to
date.”
“The project is now in a form
that is quite tangible, ” Queen’s
Centre Executive Committee
Chair Andrew Pipe told trustees
March 4 before the vote. “Our
students have shown unprecedented
support for this project,
and we are grateful to the AMS
for their leadership.”
“We think the proposal is
spectacular,” Mr. Simpson added.
“We are now at a point where
decisions on how to proceed are
vital.”
For example, the university
will be without an ice surface
starting for five years beginning
in the 2007-08 academic year
while Phase 1 construction takes
place. Different options include
building a temporary facility and
talking to the city and others
about sharing facilities, Mr. Simpson
said last Thursday. In terms
of the least disruption, this was
the one area that did not work
out positively.
Had the board not chosen to
proceed with the project, Finance
Committee Chair Bill Young
noted that it would cost between
$70 and $100 million simply to
maintain the existing buildings.
In addition to the $25.5-million
student contribution, the
$230 million includes about $130
million raised through private
contributions, and $62 million in
debt financing, Mr. Young said. It
will cost about $4.5 million a year
to service the debt (6 per cent over
30 years beginning in Year 4).
The board originally approved
the concept of the Queen’s Centre
in May 2003 – the result of
a growing concern that students
and faculty were choosing not
to come to Queen’s because of
the poor quality of its student
life, athletics and recreational
facilities. In March 2004, the
university appointed the team of
Bregman + Hamann of Toronto,
Sasaki, and Shoalts & Zaback
of Kingston to steer the project.
Since then, the architects and
the Queen’s Centre programming
committee reconfigured
the 2003 concept to reflect the
key ideas expressed during an
extensive public consultation
process.
During consultations, preservation
of historic homes on the
Queen’s Centre site, accessibility,
sustainability, scale of facility
(keeping in character with the
neighbourhood) and parking
emerged as key issues.
Although there was strong
community encouragement to
build a 50-metre pool, the capital
and operating costs outweighed
the university’s programming
needs. The planned 37.5-by-21-
metre pool will meet the requirements
of the university’s recreational,
varsity and competitive
needs.
According to the report, the
next key steps for the project
include:
- Refining exterior and interior
design features and program
elements;
- Addressing parking issues;
- Initiating city planning approvals
and Clergy Street closure;
- Exploring swing space needs
(ice rink).
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