U of L arrives at Destination
University handed keys to $248M Destination Project building
With keys now in hand, the University of Lethbridge is looking forward to moving into its new $248-million Destination Project Science and Academic building by May. Local media were given the opportunity to tour the largely completed project on Wednesday with Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips, Lethbridge-East MLA Maria Fitzpatrick and various university officials.
The tour highlighted the first-rate laboratory facilities which will be housed in the building, the sustainability aspects which have been incorporated into the building’s design, and some of “wow-factor” spaces which the building boasts — spaces such as the university’s largest auditorium, the building’s Winter Garden, and its Makerspace classrooms, which will allow greater applied learning by students attending classes in the facility.
Media representatives were told there are still about 100 workers left on site applying the finishing touches on a project that boasted about 600 workers at its height.
Phillips credited the Destination Project with being the right project for the right time in Lethbridge in helping many workers who would otherwise have been unemployed during the recent recession.
“I can tell you from personal experience on knocking on doors in west Lethbridge that I have talked to people who moved here for work on this project, and then the Cavendish project,” said Phillips. “What that shows, is when a government takes the initiative to make sure we are building and hiring through a recession, especially construction and trade labour that did suffer through the recession, that we were able to put people to work on important projects that had been waiting for years. Not just in the public sector, but also attracting that privatesector investment — that had a real effect on ordinary people’s lives here in Lethbridge.”
Phillips also took the opportunity to announce an additional $1 million in lights on funding for the new science building on behalf of Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt, and reiterated Premier Rachel Notley’s commitment to stable post-secondary funding going forward.
“What we are seeing here is the largest investment in the University of Lethbridge since it was opened 40 years ago,” she stated. “And what we are seeing is an expansion not only of student spaces, but of space for researchers to attract the top talent, to solve problems in the 21st century. Here at the University of Lethbridge, they are able to expand their research capacity, their outreach to the community, science’s relevance in the community, and just a better support for knowledge, inquiry, education and training. Those are core values in this community as home to two post-secondary institutions, and certainly our government was very pleased to support this initiative, fully funding the $248 million to get this project up and running.”
U of L president Mike Mahon said the university is grateful for the provincial government’s support for the science building, and his staff are keen to move in and start getting all the lab spaces up and running before classes commence in September.
“It’s a spectacular building,” he said, “and we are so proud of the elements of the building we had really committed to from the getgo — ensuring the building met the needs of students, ensuring it was really a community building so it is open to the K-12 community and broader community of Lethbridge. We were also committed to being sustainable. This building will be 53 per cent more sustainable (in its operations) than the average science building across the country.”