Seneca College King campus expansion moves forward despite Ontario election

King Connection
May 8, 2015
By Tim Kelly

Just like the municipality in which it is located, Seneca College in King Township is growing.

Infrastructure Ontario and Seneca on April 30 issued requests for qualifications to pre-qualify companies to design, build and finance phase one of the Seneca King campus expansion in King City.

The project is not affected by the upcoming June 12 provincial election or the recent Liberal budget that was shelved as a result.

The $43-million campus expansion will create space for an additional 1,450 students as part of a master plan to grow the facility to accommodate more than 5,000 full-time students.

Seneca College president David Agnew was thrilled with the announcement.

“This exciting project will allow Seneca to continue to meet the needs of our students with new and revitalized space, while allowing us to accommodate the growing demand for post-secondary education in York Region,” he said.

For King Township Mayor Steve Pellegrini, the Seneca expansion in King City was not unexpected, but was still a chance to celebrate another step in the growth of post-secondary education in the municipality.

“I’ve been working with Seneca and I’m delighted. This has been on the books for a little while,” Mr. Pellegrini said. “The economic impact is amazing for our community. We always envisioned this expansion. Seneca is our largest employer.”

The King Campus expansion project includes:

- a new academic facility to accommodate approximately 25 new classrooms, computer labs, specialty labs for training health care practitioners, a library, learning commons, and student study space;

- a new student centre that will include a multi-purpose athletic and recreation space featuring a gymnasium, fitness centre, informal study areas and event spaces, partially funded by the Seneca Student Federation and the Student Athletics Association and;

- upgrades to Garriock Hall, the main academic facility, and to existing site services.

The pre-qualifying request is the first step in the procurement process to select a team to design, build and finance the project.

Submissions will be reviewed to shortlist project teams with the design and construction experience as well as the qualified personnel and financial capacity to deliver a project of this size and complexity.

Short-listed teams will then be invited to respond to a request for proposals, expected to be released this fall.

The project will be built using Infrastructure Ontario’s alternative financing and procurement delivery model - a public-private partnership model - that transfers risks associated with designing, constructing and financing a building to the private sector.

Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities are working together with Seneca to procure and deliver the new facilities.