Lora Grindlay
Province
Premier Gordon Campbell (left) and MLA Lorne Mayencourt inspect a model of the SFU contemporary arts school to open downtown. Photograph by : Jon Murray, The Province
The B.C. government announced yesterday $49.3 million will go toward a new Downtown Eastside campus for Simon Fraser University‘s School for the Contemporary Arts.
The 30-year-old school, now at SFU’s Burnaby campus, is to become the centrepiece of the ongoing redevelopment of the Woodwards site in the 100-block West Hastings Street.
Aspiring artists, dancers, filmmakers and musicians and their professors will move into the 127,500-square-foot, five-storey facility in late 2009.
It will feature performance theatres, galleries, a cinema, soundstage, dance and music studios, computer labs and film-editing suites.
The parcel of land for the school, at the southwest corner of West Hastings and Abbott streets, is valued at more than $10 million.
It was donated to the school by Westbank Projects Corp. and the Peterson Group, developers of the Woodwards site.
The former department-store site will also contain both market and social housing, public spaces, office and retail space.
The new campus is expected to cost $71.5 million.
Along with Victoria‘s money, the university has launched a $30-million fundraising campaign to pay for the new digs.
SFU president Michael Stevenson said about $15 million has already been raised.
Third-year film student Kelvin Redvers, 20, was thrilled after seeing a computerized tour of the environmentally sustainable building yesterday.
“I want that building now,” he said.
He said currently each art discipline is housed in separate buildings.
“We don’t have a community where the Woodwards building will bring us under one roof,” said Redvers, who has won numerous international awards for his films.
“We will inspire each other. Music is a huge part of film, dance is a huge part of theatre. Every art is interconnected and this building will allow that to flourish.” A visual fly-through tour can be seen at http:// cgi.sfu.ca/~scahome/?q=woodwards_gallery [email protected]
© The Vancouver Province 2007
