Technical University of British Columbia - Campus

Campus

Although the February 1995 announcement placed TechBC on provincially-owned land in Cloverdale, the impracticality of that site from an urban and transportation perspective became readily apparent. The City of Surrey offered a 12-acre (49,000 m2) parcel of land in Whalley, the economic centre of the municipality, leading to a July 1998 announcement that TechBC would receive an urban campus adjacent to Surrey Place Mall instead of the cow pasture previously announced.

Meanwhile, however, the property-development arm of the provincial auto insurer, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), had quietly acquired the mall next door. ICBC president and NDP operative Bob Williams approached the provincial government with an ambitious scheme: the construction of a three-storey galleria above the mall and a twenty-storey landmark office tower, designed by Vancouver architect Bing Thom. TechBC would occupy the galleria and tower podium, while ICBC would move its corporate offices to the tower. The scheme was seen not only as revitalization for the depressed urban core of Surrey, but as a way to take the new university's capital costs "off-book," by financing them through ICBC, which would charge an annual rent to the university. Instead of the $100 million in capital costs promised by the government, TechBC was obliged to pay $426,000 a month to ICBC for its campus, an amount totalling over $178 million over the 25-year term after additional charges were included. While many in the university expressed concern over this arrangement, the final decisions -- and the ultimate source of virtually all the university's funding -- rested in Victoria.

The building project was ultimately a major liability for TechBC. The incoming BC Liberal government of Gordon Campbell used the project to smear the NDP, which it trounced in the 2001 election and which was tarnished by the fast ferry scandal and other megaprojects gone wrong. The university's lease payments also skewed comparisons with other institutions, all of which had pre-existing 'gifted' capital assets and buildings. Delay in completion of the university's permanent facilities, occasioned by the ICBC project, also reduced the rate at which TechBC could take in students, leading to allegations that it was not meeting enrollment targets.

TechBC never occupied its permanent facilities in the "Central City" development. At the time of its closure in 2002, it remained in leased 'betaspace' premises in a former Zellers store at Surrey Place Mall. In 2004, Premier Gordon Campbell announced that SFU would occupy the much-maligned facility after all. SFU moved into the new space in September 2006.