Royal Roads University is planning a major expansion by updating its historic Mews property and building an addition to create a 52,000-square-foot environmental science facility for an estimated $21.5 million.
The university’s board of governors has approved the plan, which calls for the project to be finished in 2018.
Few details are being released by the Colwood-based university, which serves about 5,000 students annually.
“The final scope and the cost of the project is subject to final approval from government,” Katharine Harrold, vice-president of communications and advancement, said in an interview Wednesday.
Plans for the Centre for Environmental Science and International Partnership are outlined in a 24-page preliminary discussion paper dated May 2016.
It appears that federal government money is part of the funding plan. The paper said the April 2018 completion goal is “in keeping with federal funding requirements.”
A “generous private donation” for the addition would pay for an atrium and for “creation spaces,” the paper said.
The estimated cost of the project is $21.5 million, it said. “RRU is fully aligned with all funding bodies and will ensure optimum investment and prudent management of capital funding resources.”
Requests for tenders have been published for some aspects of the facility, including mechanical, civil and electrical engineering. Bids close this month and in October.
As for the centre’s international partnership component, Harrold said the “scope has yet to be determined.”
Plans call for the exterior of the two-storey, 33,626-square-foot Mews to be renovated. An adjoining addition of 18,460 square feet would be built.
State-of-the-art, energy-efficient and sustainable laboratories for the university’s integrated science-based research programs on three levels are envisioned. Research and learning space with seminar areas, a commons and facilities for computer labs and academic support are among planned features.
Existing cramped and outdated science and research labs on the first and second floors of the 1949 Grant Building would be decommissioned.
The former garage and stables in the Mews were originally built in the early 1900s. The two-storey building is southwest of Hatley Castle and within the Hatley Park National Historic Site.
Hatley Castle was constructed in 1908 and 1909 for James Dunsmuir, a wealthy industrialist who inherited the family’s coal fortune and who also served as a provincial politician. The Tudor Revival castle was designed by architect Samuel Maclure. The Dunsmuirs lived on the 563-acre property facing Esquimalt Lagoon until 1937, according to Canada’s Historic Sites.
The Department of National Defence bought the property in 1940 and set up Royal Roads Military College. The current university was founded in 1995.
