Planning a Place to Live, Work, Learn and Play

Aerial photography of the campus, looking west at the Campus Commons. Mastermind Studios, August 2014.

For over forty years, TRU’s campus has been constantly growing and strategically evolving. Its landmark buildings surrounded by gardens and the best views in the city are a long way from its origins—a few cinderblock classrooms tucked between a munitions base and a landfill. A diverse community of over 10,000 students and 2,000 faculty and staff live, work and learn on campus. We welcome hundreds of visitors—from Kamloops to Kaifeng—for programs, conferences, tournaments and world-class events. TRU has become more that the sum of its buildings, green spaces and pathways; it has become a community at the heart of the city.

With this in mind, TRU began to re-envision campus within a new model—the university village—to enhance campus life for the university’s students and add vibrancy to the campus for all who visit it.

“We want to make TRU active and vibrant, and to be able to build a community on campus is quite exciting. Now we have the Campus Development Plan to guide that way forward,” says Matt Milovick, Vice-President Administration and Finance.

The Vision Takes Shape: TRU’s University Village
The university village concept focuses on pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development, with housing and services within walking distance of TRU’s academic zone: market-based (strata) residential housing, student residences, retail shops, restaurants, professional offices, and student and community assembly space.

Such development, constructed to TRU’s high standards for sustainability, will create a campus environment that students, staff, faculty, and community members will enjoy whether studying or working, visiting or living on campus. By identifying endowment lands, it will also provide an additional income stream that can be used for student support and other university needs.

With the 2013 Campus Development Plan in place, Matt Milovick, VP Administration & Finance, hopes to see university village development underway in two years.

“What I like about this plan is it’s a new vision for the campus, but it’s not radically transformative because it takes the best of what this campus currently has and helps tie it all together,” says Milovick.

“The plan gives us a direction of where we want to go and how we want to build out the campus so that it is a live, work, learn, play environment that really integrates us with the community instead of keeping us on an island.”

TRU and Kamloops community members participated in the development of the new plan through visioning sessions and town hall meetings. Participants suggested innovative ways to enhance academics and grow research capacity, promote Aboriginal culture, increase density and sustainability, provide more housing and services, and create a destination university. Incorporating the input from the community, Stantec Consulting developed the 2013 Campus Development Plan, which was approved by TRU’s Board of Governors in February 2014.

Among the features proposed in the new plan is a pedestrian avenue from McGill to the centre of campus, lined with retail shops, restaurants, professional offices and grocery stores as well as housing for both students and citizens. A new “campus heart” would increase available space for festivals, farmers markets, book sales and other university and community events, while more business investments on campus would increase revenue.

Development by Community Trust
Now that most of the groundwork has been put in place, Milovick suggests the first income-generating piece may not be far off. Attracting investors, he hints, may not be too difficult as the beauty of the location may win them over.

“I’d like to see a trust development in the ground in the next couple of years,” says Milovick. The TRU Community Trust (TRUCT), an investment corporation owned by TRU, will manage market housing and other property development on the campus, and reinvest the profits into student assistance endowments, capital investment, research and other university priorities. “Planning and development takes time and I think two years to realize a project and to break ground is realistic.”

“Everyone who visits the campus feels we have a gem here,” he says. “The topography is interesting and the sight lines for where the development is being proposed are some of the best in the city. It’s a beautiful spot.”

TRU has engaged Stantec to develop the next phase, the operational appendices to the 2013 plan. These include a campus utilities infrastructure master plan, a sustainability framework, a transportation demand study, a review process and design guidelines for the built environment, and an exploration of a district energy solution. Zoning has been proposed to establish areas for supporting enhanced research facilities, more-varied on-campus housing, and new academic buildings.

The 2013 plan will guide campus development for the next thirty to sixty years, to enhance student life on campus and invite the wider community to live, work, play, and learn.