47,000-square-foot building receives funding of $27.4 million
Mere weeks after being awarded a $10 million gift from the Harquail family and $49.3 million from the federal government’s Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Sudbury’s Laurentian University pocketed another $27.4 million from the federal and provincial governments for a new 47,000-square-foot research, innovation and engineering building.
The new Research, Innovation and Engineering Building will be named in honour of Clifford A. Fielding in recognition of a $3 million gift from the late Sudbury entrepreneur’s family. The building will include facilities for collaborative R&D, innovation and commercialization, as well as labs for material analysis, environmental and soil mechanics and hydraulics and fluid mechanics. Also planned are a prototype development centre and machine shop, and integrated software lab and lecture theatre.
Site clearing commenced in November and blast and rock removal begins in January. The building will be constructed to LEED gold standards for energy efficiency and is designed by Sudbury architects Yallowega Bélanger Salach.
Occupancy is scheduled for March 2018, according to Brad Parkes, executive director, facilities services.
“Over the last 10 years, Laurentian University has secured more than $200 million in research income while enrolment at the award-winning Bharti School of Engineering has increased from 100 to 700 students during that period,” said Laurentian president Dominic Giroux. “We have a major role to play in supporting research and innovation opportunities both for students and for industry partners. The support received by the federal and provincial governments will certainly help us meet these demands.”
The school has Mining, Mechanical and Chemical Engineering programs as well as a two-year Civil Engineering program.
Laurentian’s growing stature as an engineering powerhouse is attributable in part to the generosity of Stan Bharti, chairman and CEO of merchant banker Forbes & Manhattan, and Ned Goodman, CEO of Toronto-based Dundee Corporation.
Bharti gave the school a $10 million endowment in November 2011 to fund scholarships, field trips, faculty recruitment and improvements to classrooms and labs. The following year, Laurentian named its School of Mines in honour of Goodman, a Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee and industry power broker, in recognition of a $20 million endowment to support the development of new courses and programs, enhance the learning environment, fund scholarships and assist with student recruitment.
The $27.4 million investment for the new research, innovation and engineering building includes a $21.1 million contribution from the federal government’s $2 billion Post- Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund, and a $6.3 million contribution from the province of Ontario and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation.
