Private school avoids eviction from U of T

Tentative agreement with university calls for expansion of UTS facilities on campus

The University of Toronto Schools has avoided eviction, and then some.

The prestigious private school located on the University of Toronto’s downtown campus has reached a tentative 50-year deal to stay put, develop almost150,000 square feet of space and renew its official affiliation with the university.

After more than a century on cam- pus, in 2011 the school was handed a surprise eviction notice, to take effect in 10 years.

Now the new deal would see the school remain at 371Bloor St. W. and the building’s 105-year-old facade stay in place while the school builds a 70,000-square-foot addition and renovates about 70,000 square feet of existing space, said Jim Fleck, who chairs the school’s board.

UTS is feeling “jubilant,” Fleck said, who is also an alumnus of the school.

“There’s been a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “We were going to be leaving in 2021, and now, of course, we won’t be. We’ll be staying right where we

“We were going to be leaving in 2021, and now of course we won’t be. We’ll be staying right where we are and enhancing it.” JIM FLECK UTS BOARD CHAIR

are and enhancing it.”

Founded in 1910, the school counts Mayor John Tory among its alumni, along with a number of Rhodes scholars and Nobel laureates.

“It would have been very difficult if we’d had to locate anywhere else,” Fleck said, who added that 640 grade 7 to 12 students travel from across the city to attend the school, which caters to high-achieving students.

Construction plans include a 700seat auditorium that doubles as a university classroom, a double gym, an atrium and a black box theatre.

The university will retain ownership of the building and the land, with UTS paying for construction and operating costs. Both parties engaged in open and constructive talks, said Scott Mabury, the university’s vice-president of operations.

“The conversation over the past two or three years has been very pro- ductive, focused on how can we create a project that works equally well for both parties. And that’s what we’ve managed to do,” he said.

The deal allows the university to redevelop the balance of the Bloor St. W. and Spadina Ave. block, Mabury said.

Construction could begin as soon as summer 2017 and is slated to last three or four years, according to Fleck. The school hopes to avoid any disruptions by constructing the new space before closing the old space for renovations.

The agreement depends on approval from U of T’s governing council.