Emily Carr University unveils new B.C. campus
VANCOUVER — Hundreds of students are starting the school year at Emily Carr University of Art and Design’s new campus in Vancouver, leaving behind its Granville Island home of nearly four decades.
Construction for the $122.6-million facility on Great Northern Way began in 2015.
The university owns the new site, which is also shared in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Emily Carr president Ron Burnett said the site marks a new approach to post-secondary education that is collaborative and considers the technology and innovation required for the future economy.
“Emily Carr is as focused on high tech and industry development as it is on the visual arts, the fine arts, the traditional disciplines.
“It’s really important to state this clearly, we would not be a culture or a society without the arts,” Burnett said Tuesday.
Premier John Horgan attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and said the site, that was supported by the previous Liberal government, is a legacy that will last generations and contribute to the development of the province’s technology sector.
“This new campus is equipped to open up even more opportunities for young people right across the world so they can come here and learn to use their creative skills and drive innovation and our economy,” Horgan said.
Burnett said the idea to collaborate with the other institutions and share the land located near major transit hubs in the city began while he met with then-University of B.C. president Martha Piper in 2001.
“We envisioned these lands as part of an overall shared facility that would celebrate the creative and extraordinary knowledge that we share among our institutions,” he said.
The university was founded as the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts in 1925, and Burnett said the institution is proud of the achievements of thousands of its graduates over the past 92 years.
The new site opens up the opportunity to grow its student population, particularly at the master’s level, Burnett said, but growth will be slow and managed so that it doesn’t overburden resources.
The university completed its move from Granville Island where it has leased space since 1980 ahead of the new school year, but Burnett said the school isn’t cutting its ties from the location entirely.
He said they are talking with Granville Island’s operator, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp., about projects that would involve the university supporting the construction of new sites and facilities.
“I’ve suggested … that the old [university] building, which is about 110 years old, should be converted to studios and non-profit offices.
“My hope would be it could become an arts centre for the city,” Burnett said.
CMHC released a report this year with a vision to redevelop the site by 2040, which included adding better access to transit and pedestrian paths, expanding the public market and nonfood vendors, and creating an arts hub that would maintain and build upon the atmosphere left by the university.
There is no set timeline on when these changes will begin or how they will be funded.
While the university’s lease on the space officially ends in December, no other entity has been confirmed to take over the university site.