Construction begins on new Chilliwack campus
This article was written by Robert Freeman and was published in the Chilliwack Progress on April 23, 2010.
More than just a little paint and rust removal is involved in the “renovations” now underway at the former military engineering school at CFB Chilliwack where UFV is building a new campus.
“We didn’t want to have a battleship on campus,” Craig Toews, UFV’s chair of new campus planning, said about the old military school. “We wanted to have an open, welcoming building.”
So the big, blue, glass-and-steel engineering school - which does indeed look like a battleship - is being “cracked open” and replaced with a light and airy edifice where students can meet and talk and study in a more university-like setting.
An aboriginal longhouse, a student “town hall” and an indoor courtyard are also built into the campus plan.
And it’s all supposed to happen by September next year.
“We’re actually ahead of the game in terms of scheduling,” Toews said, during a Friday interview. “We’re looking at moving into it by September, 2011.”
He said a developer has been found to buy the 27-acre north campus property, which will provide the funds needed to move the health sciences, teacher education and other UFV programs to the new campus at Canada Education Park.
The education park is a joint venture by UFV and the City of Chilliwack to redevelop the former military property, which had been turned over by the federal government to the Canada Lands Company after the base closed in 1996.
But aboriginal land claims delayed official transfer to the CLC until 2004.
The city purchased 200 acres of the property in 2005, and UFV then purchased 85 acres from the city to build its new campus.
In 2007, UFV opened its Trades and Technology Centre on part of the site with $21 million in provincial funding, and in April last year received $7 million from the federal and provincial governments to renovate the old engineering school.
But selling the north campus to pay the estimated $40-million cost of the move was proving problematic, given global economic conditions.
“It wasn’t the ideal time to put a big chunk of commercial property on the market,” Toews said.
There was also a huge new Eagle Landing retail development announced at the nearby Squiala First Nation reserve.
But continuing Airport Road through the north campus property to connect with the new Evans Road corridor that made the Eagle Landing development possible was part of the city and university plans.
“The developer is working on a vision around that - continuing Airport Road through developing some commercial/retail, and possibly even some residential in the back” of the old campus property, Toews said.
In the interim, UFV officials started brainstorming with architects and department heads to come up with a land-use plan for the new campus that would eventually call for one million square-feet of new buildings, which is double the size of the Abbotsford campus, and become home for up to 20,000 students.
“This was an exciting time, to have somewhat of a fresh palette,” Toews said, about the mood of campus planners.
For aesthetic as well as economic reasons, it was decided to use the university’s limited funding to avoid the kind of “silo” arrangement of buildings seen at the north campus and to locate all the departments in one building.
“Bringing the whole campus into one building gives you a much more integrated and inclusive community,” he said. “There’s a recognizable town hall where you can have events and information, and there will be a social node, all these things happening in an integrated fashion.”
So the military-built engineering school, which was never used because it was still under construction when the base closure was announced in 1995, is now being deconstructed for the expansion.
Some of the steel architecture favoured by military builders is being pulled out and replaced with wood, to give the new structure a “very warm and friendly feeling,” Toews said.
“We’re introducing a lot of wood, structurally, and in the finish,” he said. Skylights above the length of the main east-west corridor will also open up the two-storey structure. Only one block of administrative offices will be three storeys.
Earth along the south side of the structure will be scooped out to bring daylight and the outdoors to the lower floors.
Sto:lo leaders and elders were consulted on construction of the longhouse, which will be used by all students, and an aboriginal theme will be expressed throughout the campus building.
Toews said discussions are also underway with the RCMP, which operates its Pacific Region Training Centre nearby, to move a target range indoors so UFV students are not periodically rattled by the sound of gunfire.
“It’s obviously incongruent with a university,” Toews said.
A university campus was apparently always part of Canada Lands’ redevelopment plans to promote its Garrison Crossing residential development.
Located on another 153-acre parcel of the base property, the 1,500-unit housing project was the last large-scale residential development in Chilliwack. It was modeled after a similar redevelopment project undertaken by Canada Lands called Garrison Woods at CFB Calgary. The CLC is the real estate arm of the federal government.
Toews said a condition of sale of the parcel to UFV was construction of a new university campus on the land.
“It was Canada Land’s vision that a university would be the jewel of this neighbourhood,” he said. “It’s an economic development piece.”
He said UFV was required to sign a covenant stating “if we don’t have $20-million worth of construction tendered and started in the ground by September, 2011, then we will incur penalty payments to Canada Lands up to the tune of $6 million.”
“They wanted to have some hooks in the purchase agreement to make sure the university wasn’t buying this property for endowment lands,” he explained.
But little chance of that as the university’s new land-use plan covers the next 50-100 years.
Not bad for a post-secondary institution that started in 1974 as the Fraser Valley College, holding classes in church basements and community centres.
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