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First SSU campus building to start construction next month

Construction is set to start on Sea to Sky University's first campus building next month, the institution announced this week.

Construction is set to start on Sea to Sky University's first campus building next month, the institution announced this week.

But at the same time, university leaders cautioned that unforeseen construction delays and the success of recruitment programs for Canada's first non-profit secular university could still impact the university's current projected opening date of September 2006.

Tenders have gone out for a $5-million multi-use recreation centre, SSU President Dr. David Strangway and Peter Ufford, President of the Sea to Sky Foundation and university project leader, announced in a media release Wednesday (Feb. 9).

The three-level facility will be built in two phases. The first phase will include a full-sized gymnasium, two squash courts, a fitness facility plus changing rooms and washrooms, street-front student services bays and a two-bedroom residence for either the building manager or athletic director.

Phase Two construction calls for a student pub, two more squash courts, additional washrooms and an expanded fitness area. The completed athletics complex will also have a regulation-sized artificial turf playing field next to the recreation centre.

The centre is being built with revenues from the sale of SSU's first tract of market housing lands to University Heights Development Corp., according to Terry Partington, SSU's Director of Campus and Real Estate Development. The deal with University Heights for a 47-acre parcel is slated to close late this month, with 122 single-family homes and 78 townhome lots to be marketed on the land.

SSU has also begun negotiations with private parties for construction of student residences on the campus and is doing site preparation and installing roads and services on the university lands, as well as finishing the approaches to the bridge over Mashiter Creek. The site preparation, roads and services and bridge projects together cost more than $9 million, according to SSU.

Strangway and Ufford noted that all Phase 1 campus construction is predicated on the assurance of prior financing for each campus building and facility. Tender calls for three other campus structures - the University Services Building, the Library/Learning Centre and the connecting underground parking and service corridor structure - are expected to be issued during the coming months.

Ufford also noted that "unforeseen construction delays and the success of our recruitment programs to attract students to the new university could well impact our projected university opening date of September 2006."

"As we have reported today, our SSU project is forging steadily ahead on all fronts. Nonetheless, despite our dedicated team efforts plus the outstanding support of our donors, all of us must be prepared to face future outside eventualities quite above and beyond our control," Strangway said.

SSU appoints new board members, staff

SSU also announced this week several appointments and changes in staff.

Dr. Olav Slaymaker, Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of B.C., is the newest member of SSU's Board of Directors. Slaymaker is 2005 Distinguished Scholar in Residence at UBC's Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and spent 36 as a full-time UBC faculty member who variously served as Head of Geography, Associate Vice-President Research and Chair of South-North Studies.

Larry Sproul, B.Comm, M.A., has been named to the SSU executive staff as Director of International Liaison and Assistant to the President.

SSU also announced it is in the process of interviewing candidates to replace vice-president academic Dr. Ken Coates and registrar Dr. Carin Holroyd, who left SSU during the course of 2004. The husband and wife team were appointed to the posts last July.

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