The University of Windsor is home to about 16,000 full- and part-time students, with an annual budget of almost $212 million. The latest project will be funded by parking fees.
Wildeman hopes the Innovation Centre, which will sit beside the new engineering building, will attract startup companies and other organizations interested in academic partnerships.
“We’re looking for organizations that share in the vision of applying innovation, research and education to help advance our regional economy,” he said. “It’s really about creating an address for innovation.”
WINDSOR, Ont. -- After years of parking problems, the University of Windsor announced Thursday it will build a seven-storey parking structure, with attached two-storey Innovation Centre, by the summer of 2013.
The $25.8-million structure, approved at a board meeting Wednesday, will offer 1,055 parking spaces on the south side of Wyandotte Street West between Sunset and California avenues, where an outdoor lot now sits. The new structure will add about 300 parking spaces on campus, bringing the total to 3,000.
“Parking has been a challenge for people sometimes,” University of Windsor president Alan Wildeman said Thursday. “So this allows us to create some additional capacity but also to consolidate parking on a smaller footprint at a kind of central location on campus.
“And as we take out some surface lots, it will enable us to create a greener campus and free up some land that could be used for future capital development, if needed.”
The project, which will begin early next year, consists of two buildings connected by a pedestrian bridge. The Innovation Centre will house the Campus Community Police, Parking Services, as well as campus-life improvements such as a cafe and courtyard. A financial institution may wind up on the main floor to provide on-campus banking while the second floor could serve as space for organizations concerned with innovation and community enhancement.
“On the main floor we knew there were a few things we wanted to provide to enhance the experience — to make a better campus — to best serve the 20,000 faculty, staff and students who work here,” Wildeman said. “With a facility of this type there needs to be a cafe that students can use.”
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