By Wojtek Dabrowski
With renewed commitments of land and money, the student centre is moving on to its next step — asking the city for $1-million in public funding.
The university will increase its annual $200,000 contribution by 3 per cent each year, said Linda Grayson, v.p. Administration and student services, at last Wednesday’s student centre committee meeting.
She said the extra money is proportional to the centre’s anticipated maintenance costs.
Also, the university officially announced the $11.2-million centre will fit on the land allocated at 55 Gould St.
“I just think that [the student centre] is a terrific concept, and that the university should do everything in its power to support it,” Grayson said.
The university’s contribution will come when the centre is built, and that may be two or three years from now, Grayson said.
“I don’t know where we’ll be taking that particular $200,000 from,” she added, saying she will not worry about specifics until much later.
Students have also started to contribute to the student centre. The $60 per year each student paid to finance the RAC’s mortgage, which has been paid off, now goes toward the student centre. That’s around $700,000 this year.
To push the project forward quickly, RyeSAC president Erin George has approached Gordon Cressy, Ryerson’s chief development officer, with a proposal to include the student centre in the university’s upcoming fundraising campaign.
“There might be students or alumni who wouldn’t cough up a dime to administration or Ryerson itself,” George said. “But they probably would want to contribute to something student-related, like a student centre.”
The student centre also needs final approval from Ryerson’s board of governors, which may happen by the end of this academic year.
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