Downtown campus starting to take shape
Construction is expected to start by the middle of next year on UBC Okanagan’s new downtown campus.
The project, at 550 Doyle Ave., will have approximately 80,000 square feet of space for academic and research purposes. Plans also show highrises with residential and office premises.
A key feature of the downtown campus will be a so-called “health hub,” designed to be a place where students can put their training and education into realworld practice.
“Students will be able to put their skills into immediate practice from administering vaccinations to providing support to people struggling with addictions, to providing exercise programming for seniors,” reads part of an overview for the downtown campus.
A “Creative Innovation Space,” designed to be a place where artists, entrepreneurs, and members of the public connect with one another, is also planned for the downtown campus.
“At times, it will look like what we think of being a traditional art gallery with pieces of art hanging on the wall curated by professional curators, art historians and students,” says Bryce Traister, dean of the faculty of creative and critical studies.
“It will also be an engagement and launch space for new kinds of creative work that may or may not fall into our usual understandings of what art can or cannot be,” Traister says.
Partnerships with a variety of Okanagan business sectors are also planned in a so-called “learning suite.”
“For example, programs on wine tasting are being developed with international partners,” a UBCO document states.
“The suite will be equipped to the highest standards to enable groups of about 30 — residents of our region, visitors, and students — to learn how to taste a wine knowledgeably, and to be able to identify its characteristics, qualities, and faults,” the document says.
Participants in a recent online public house had many questions about specific aspects of the project. University staff are preparing answers to those questions, and expect to provide them to the public in the next week or so.
Currently, UBCO has about 11,000 students, but that number is expected to grow to more than 20,000 by 2040.
“With this kind of expanded presence over the coming years, it only makes sense that we would create communityfacing academic space in the heart of Kelowna, in close proximity to many of our community partners working in health, tech, business, and arts and culture,” Deborah Buszard, then principal of UBCO, said last June when the downtown campus was announced.