Ottawa providing $27M for U of R's College Ave campus

The University of Regina’s campus on College Avenue is getting an infusion of cash courtesy of the federal government.

The century-old campus will get just over $27 million from Ottawa, which will be used to upgrade the buildings.

Dave Button. Vice President of Administration with the U of R, said this investment means a lot.

“We’ve been working on College Avenue campus for many, many years now and it’s so great to get to a point where we can make a super announcement like this.”

The university and its partners will be matching the funding provided by Ottawa, bringing the amount being spent on the renovations to over $54 million. The total cost of the renovations on the historic campus is just over $55 million.

According to Button, the university had been working on this with the federal government for a while, but he was not sure how it would all work out saying “you never know until it’s announced what you’re going to get.”

The money will help the university do a number of things with the campus, like making it more accessible and functional.

The building’s current tenants will be moved to temporary sites so crews have full access to the building.

Besides funding for the old campus, the federal government is also providing over $2 million to upgrade one of the lab buildings at the U of R.

Button said the building is over 50 years old and needs upgrades to bring it up to code – this would include installing sprinklers and upgrading fire alarms.

All the work is expected to be complete by the spring of 2018.

Both investments are part of $137 million which the federal government is investing in post-secondary institutions across Saskatchewan.