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SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 | Volume 29 No. 114
TRU’s billion-dollar Reach into the future MULTI-DECADE PLANNED COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS MODELLED AFTER SFU, UBC SITES DALE BASS
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Thompson Rivers University has taken the first step in a $1-billion project to create a village on campus. The concept, called The Reach, will combine office, retail and residential space, creating a “vibrant neighbourhood where you can live, work, study and play 24/7,” said TRU president Alan Shaver. The first request for proposals has been sent to 35 developers in the province. About a dozen have already replied, expressing interest in the first phase. That would see an estimated 90,000 square feet of residential and market condominium housing built on land on University Drive on the north side of the Old Main Building. The project is being done through the uni-
versity’s community trust. The land will be leased to developers with revenue going to student assistance and funding research, said Christopher Seguin, the university’s vice-president advancement. Frank Quinn, chair of the community trust board, said the dollar value of the project is based on the cost to build, a figure he pegged at $300 per square foot. Once complete, The Reach will add threemillion square feet of residential living space, 40,000 square feet of new office space and 78,000 square feet of new retail space. The university has about 90 acres on which the village can be built. It will be similar to developments at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. Quinn hopes construction can begin within 12 months on the
An artist’s rendition of what the outdoors commons may look like once The Reach, a community at Thompson Rivers University, is fully built out.
project he predicted “will change the face not only of the university but of the city.” He said building a community will end the “drive in, drive out, lights off” reality that now exists on campus and see activities happening into the evening.
Quinn also sees the project as a way to attract students and perhaps encourage them to remain in Kamloops after graduating. Seguin agreed with Quinn, noting it gets quiet at TRU in the evening. While concepts, elevation, density and
look are included in the request for proposals, developers can present their own ideas that conform with those criteria. Any development must be approved by the trust board. The project is parking-neutral, Quinn said. For each existing
parking space that will disappear as buildings are constructed, underground parking will be built to ensure the number of parking stalls does not decrease. Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake, a faculty member at TRU, said when he
arrived in 1997 at what was then the University College of the Cariboo, many of the buildings now on campus didn’t exist, including part of Old Main, the House of Learning, the International Building and the animal-health building that houses the discipline he taught. Lake said the name is appropriate because, as finding affordable housing on the Lower Mainland “is no longer in reach, you can find a nice living in Kamloops is in reach.” Quinn said market conditions will influence the timeline for completion of the project, but he anticipates everything will be in place within 20 years.
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