A new site in Weston is one of George Brown College's options to ease a space crunch at the Toronto school, officials have confirmed.
The college, which has doubled in growth in the last five years, has submitted a list of four potential expansion projects to the province's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), said Paul Zanettos, a spokesperson for George Brown.
"(Student) demand really far outweighs the space that we have available," Zanettos explained.
Zanettos said the college did not want to release details of its list of capital projects, including locations of the other three options. However, he confirmed a location in Weston is one of the four proposals.
George Brown currently has two main campuses, one near Casa Loma and one downtown on King Street East, as well as a presence at Ryerson University. It is in the midst of building its third campus, which will house its health sciences programs, on a prime spot of Toronto's waterfront at Lower Sherbourne Street south of Queens Quay. It also has 10 training facilities.
York South-Weston Councillor Frances Nunziata said she hasn't seen details of the George Brown proposal but it was her understanding that it would be located in a vacant office/retail building at the base of 33/35 King St. in Weston, immediately west of the rail corridor. The location sits at the base of a rental apartment tower built in the 1960s, said Nunziata. There is more than 65,000 square feet of vacant floor space at the location.
Using the property, which is about a half kilometre from the GO Transit train station, to accommodate a branch of George Brown has gone from suggestion to proposal in a scant few months.
Toronto's former chief planner, Paul Bedford, now an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, first broached the idea publicly at a community meeting in May. At the meeting, Bedford and students in his urban planning course presented the results of a study they had done examining ways to revitalize Weston. No. 1 on a list of 10 ideas was the proposal for a George Brown location at the King Street site.
Following that presentation, Nunziata said she, along with the area's MPP Laura Albanese and MP Alan Tonks, both Liberals, and a representative of the Weston Village Residents Association, had meetings with Eugene Harrigan, George Brown's vice-president of corporate affairs, to push the idea.
"There's 100 per cent community support behind this," said David McBride, chair of the Weston Village Residents Association.
However, it's clear the Weston college site will have to compete with a long list of other post-secondary projects for provincial dollars.
"The government is developing a 10-year capital plan and, for the first time, colleges and universities will be included in government capital planning," stated Miriam Hawkins, a spokesperson for the MTCU, in an email.
"As part of the planning process, colleges and universities were required to submit a list of capital priorities by June 30, 2010. A Weston campus was identified by George Brown College as one of its priority projects. The funding request will be considered, along with capital requests from all colleges and universities."
A report commissioned by the ministry in 2008 outlined the demand for new student spaces in the growing GTA.
"The most conservative projections estimate that post-secondary enrolment demand in the GTA will increase by an additional 35,000 full-time university undergraduate and 13,000 college spaces by 2015," stated the report, which was submitted to the ministry in April, 2009 by The Courtyard Group, a consulting company.
"We're cautiously optimistic we'll go ahead with something," McBride said of expectations the province will approve funding for the Weston campus. "But we know what happens these days so we're not trying to sell it as a done deal - it's step one."
Nunziata said she feels the proposal is "99 per cent sure" to go ahead. She said now that George Brown has officially submitted the proposal, all that is required is political lobbying of the province to give it the go ahead.
"We don't have anything in York South-Weston," said Nunziata of the need for the school. "It's so much in need of revitalization."
Although the project is contingent on provincial approval, Nunziata said there were other ideas brought forward by Bedford's class that could be completed by the city and community without assistance from upper levels of government.
Nunziata said she supports the idea of a town square on John Street centred around the parking lot that hosts the weekly farmers market.
She's also forwarded to city staff the suggestion to change the look, feel and experience of Weston Road by making the main shopping district more attractive through a number of urbanization strategies, including narrowing Weston Road to two lanes from Lawrence to King or Church, installing bike lanes along Weston Road, widening sidewalks, planting trees and installing a landscaped median.
Nunziata said the city could begin these projects in 2011 if it felt the community and businesses support the changes, which she believes they do.
"I think that the community's ready to move forward, and any direction that can be seen as positive I think they're willing to embrace," said McBride.