Mega move for Marconi
Premier Stephen McNeil announces NSCC Marconi campus will relocate to downtown Sydney
The province committed on Friday to relocating the Nova Scotia Community College Marconi campus to downtown Sydney, a massive infrastructure project Premier Stephen McNeil says will become an “economic driver” for the area.
“I don’t want this idea sitting on a blueprint. … This project is moving. We’re doing it,” McNeil said before being interrupted by applause and then a standing ovation.
During the provincial election campaign in May, McNeil, who was seeking a second mandate for his Liberal government, said he promised to review options for moving the NSCC Marconi campus to the Sydney waterfront.
A government tender seeking a consultant to study the move was opened to competition on Friday.
The company, once chosen, will examine the move in three phases — scope of the development by consulting with stakeholders, locating a site and infrastructure requirements for the new campus, and to identify the project costs and procurement options available to the provincial government.
The final report from each phase will serve as a direction for the development and construction of the new Marconi campus.
The consultant is expected to begin work in February. The initial term of the contract will
be for 12 months, with the option for an extension of up to six months.
McNeil said he’s aware of preliminary estimates of the cost to relocate the campus, but wouldn’t discuss it when asked by reporters on Friday.
“The cost will be enormous;
we’re going down that road now. I can tell you we’re committed to this project. This isn’t the first campus that has been moved. Obviously the Ivany campus on the (Dartmouth) waterfront was built in the early 2000s,” he said.
It would be “inappropriate” to talk about cost with the final numbers yet to be determined, he added.
Asked whether it would have been more appropriate to begin with a feasibility study, McNeil said the relocation of the campus had already been reviewed at the municipal and provincial levels over the years.
“At some point you have to stop studying and start acting.”
The NSCC Dartmouth Waterfront campus, recently renamed the Ivany campus, cost approximately $50 million to build when construction started in August 2004 on the Nova Scotia Hospital property. The 267,000-square-foot building was opened in September 2007.
NSCC president Don Bureaux told the estimated 200 people assembled for the announcement Friday that the work ahead will have to be part of a “team effort” in order to be successful.
“We’re going to work on this together, to build that vision of what this campus can look like, what it can feel like and what it can operate like and build it right here in this community,” Bureaux said.
The idea of moving the campus have been brought up in political circles as early as 2009 when then-premier Rodney MacDonald said it could help revive the urban centre of Sydney.
The discussion was revived in 2015 when Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke sent a letter to then-transportation minister Geoff MacLellan on the prospect of moving the Marconi campus to the downtown.
The Marconi campus is located on the Sydney-Glace Bay highway adjacent to Cape Breton University. The NSCC leases the campus building from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal.
Sitting on the sidelines at Friday’s provincial announcement, Clarke said he was thankful to McNeil for listening to the community.
The opportunity now presents possibilities for incorporating a new Sydney public library into the construction plans for the Marconi campus, the mayor said.
“This allows the new regional library project to find a home,” he said. “Whether in its own standalone (building) or part of a wider development, this type of infrastructure can help us realize that need and an outcome that actually adds more to the vibrancy of the community as we’ve seen it happen in the downtown of Halifax on Spring Garden
Road with their new library.”
A representative of the Sydney Waterfront District spoke to the vibrancy new development can have on existing businesses in the area.
“It means more people on our waterfront, it means more people on our streets, it means more people in our cafés and restaurants …(and) more people shopping in our stores,” said Michelle Wilson, executive director of the Sydney Waterfront District business association.
Several students, some from NSCC Marconi’s metal fabrication shop, made the 15-minute drive from the campus to listen to the speeches at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion.
First-year metal fabrication student Kayla Lannigan said locating the campus in downtown will make it lot more convenient, especially for students living in Sydney.
Although she’s unlikely to benefit from the move as she’s enrolled in a two-year program.
“I think it’ll be at least two to three years before we even see (construction) started,” said Lannigan, 18, a resident of Sydney Mines.
Another metal fabrication student, Dylan Durdle of Lingan, said he’ll “believe
it when I see it.”
“I can’t see it coming anytime soon just with everything tied up with construction and everything else that’s going on in the city, it’s just a big project,” said the 22-year-old.
“Plus, they’re talking about building that shipyard or whatever down here, so it’s just a lot of things being thrown around.”
Their instructor,
Curtis Fraser, said rumours had been circulating for about a year at the school on a possible campus relocation.
He said future stu- dents would benefit greatly from this decision.
“The building we’re in now is old so it would be nice to get newer equipment and a newer building and have everybody housed together in one unit.”