Project Domino to relocate 13 depts at $100 M cost
Tessa Vanderhart, staff
Photo by Rob MacEachern
Project Domino will relocate 13 faculties and schools over the next five years at an estimated cost of $100 million. But when the university announced the project at an impromptu press conference on Thursday, March 20, Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford could not say how much the province will contribute, if anything.
“Project Domino was a way of packaging and marketing [infrastructure improvements] in a way that, frankly, is appealing,” said associate vice-president (administration) Alan Simms, who first envisioned the project in December 2006.
“You’ve got to be competitive,” university president Emöke Szathmáry emphasized. “We have an awful lot of very bright students here in Manitoba . . . but if we can’t provide the facilities, those students are going to go to those provinces that can actually offer them that, regardless of how much it’s going to cost them.”
“If we really want to keep students here, it’s not just a matter of tuition that deals with operating costs, that’s a separate issue. We have to provide the buildings and the classrooms and the laboratories that current knowledge and future knowledge in the 21st century demands,” Szathmáry continued.
The first step of the project will be a new residence, built on Freedman Crescent in the D parking lot directly south of the Arthur V. Mauro residence. When that building is complete, Taché Hall will be renovated to house the Faculties of Music and Art and the planned Centre for Music, Art and Design.
Taché Hall, constructed in 1911, is structurally sound, McCallum said, but it is no longer feasible to operate the building because it requires $500,000 of new cabling for high-speed Internet. Residences, a part of ancillary services, are mandated to break even.
“Because of the age of Taché, of course, it’s old and it’s deteriorated and it’s expensive to upgrade, and it wasn’t realistic to think that we could do that out of residence fees,” McCallum said.
She added that Taché Hall will be a “fabulous” building for music, in part because of 16-inch soundproof walls and the Taché Hall Auditorium, which has been closed for years because of asbestos.
“The auditorium is a beautiful facility with high ceilings and a mezzanine, and I think it will make an outstanding performance facility for music,” McCallum said.
When the Faculty of Pharmacy moves to the Bannatyne campus Apotex Centre in October, the building will be converted into additional laboratory space for biological sciences, a new department that will be created by the amalgamation of zoology and botany.
The FitzGerald Building, currently home to the Faculty of Art, will house Graduate Studies, currently located on the fifth floor of University Centre.
The Faculty of Music building will be reconfigured as International House (IH), another facility the university has deferred maintenance on due to increasing construction costs. The budget for the facility increased from $2 million to $6 million. IH will include the current English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Language Centre (ELC) programs, freeing space in University Centre and Extended Education.
When CMAD was first planned in 2002, donors gave $6.2 million to the project. According to a Free Press report, the university has set aside that money, plus interest, to contribute to the Taché Hall incarnation of CMAD.
Vice-president (administration) Debbie McCallum said that the university is waiting for the provincial budget, which will specify how much the province will contribute to Project Domino, before preparing a final budget.
Currently, the university plans for the project to be funded by a mix of loans, large private donors, small private donors to the university’s capital campaign, and the provincial government.
“The total estimate of $100 million is just that, a rough estimate based on preliminary information,” McCallum said.
The provincial government’s contribution will be announced as part of the April 9 budget, according to McGifford.
The plan was approved by university Senate in closed session on March 5 and by the Board of Governors, also in closed session, on March 18.
McCallum said that Project Domino is separate from the university’s purchase of the Southwood Golf Club.
“The land isn’t even available to us for another three years. And the development of the golf course will require all-new construction, and what we’re trying to focus on here is . . . sustainability.”
The U of M has between $40-50 in deferred asbestos abatement in 100 buildings on campus.
According to a 2005 report of the 119 buildings on campus, 13 are in critical condition, 63 are in poor condition, and the remaining 43 are fair or good. Simms could not say specifically what the university’s plans are to renovate buildings not included in Project Domino.
“We’ve got a lot of issues that are going to be financed through capital debt,” Simms said. These projects include refurbishing Buller Building and purchasing new technology for Parker Building and Robson Hall.
Simms said that the university receives $3 million from the province to finance its capital debt.
“That $3 million doesn’t last very long,” Simms said.
More details about Project Domino will be announced in the coming months, after a proposed budget is finalized.
“Dreaming is fine, but you’ve got to dream realistically,” Szathmáry said.
—With files from Chelse McKee.
