By Don McHoull
Ryerson has approved a plan to build a new business building despite receiving only a fraction of the government funding it sought for the project.
Despite the funding shortfall – Ryerson sought $40 million and received on $12.5 million – Ryerson president Claude Lajeunesse was confident that the building would be constructed by 2005.
He said that the vulding would allow Ryerson to take one thousand extra students and that some of the funding those students brought in would be used to pay for construction.
“If we take in new students, then we have to put them somewhere,” he said. “So as part of the money we received for new students, which is about $10,000 per additional student, there is a certain amount of that set aside to proceed for the facilities to have the students here.”
The Board of Governors approved a proposal to buy an off-campus site to house the building on Monday. The total cost of the project, including converting te old business into the home of the faculty of the arts, is pegged at $60 million.
Lajeunesse said that over the next four years the university hoped to bring in at least $9.3 million in the private sector funding to pay for the business building, and for the new computer science and engineering building already under construction.
The new business building will bring all the program’s business schools under one roof.
Students and faculty in the business department have been seeking a new building for years, complaining about the current building which is more than thirty years old.
Commerce society President Dave Maclean praised the decision to build a new building.
“The is the best thing that could happen to the school of business,” he said. “The school of business is a big money maker for the school, and its about time that something as done for those students.”
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