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Student residence no sterile setting

Things have changed, says donor McFeetors

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 02/17/2009 6:27 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Luxurious digs in the heart of downtown?

If you’re 18, moving out and looking for a new place to live, McFeetors Hall is turning out to be pretty darned spiffy.

The new six-storey, $17.5-million student residence at the University of Winnipeg is swiftly taking shape for its Aug. 1 opening.

The building has an undulating design inside and out, so corridors twist and turn, and each room configures slightly differently — no long, long, long institutional hallways here.

"Pretty good compared to what I had as a student," Ray McFeetors chuckled as he took a tour Thursday through the working construction site. "I was in residence in Grade 12 on top of Wesley Hall."

The chairman of the board of Great-West Life, McFeetors donated $1.67 million and the company another $1 million to McFeetors Hall: Great-West Life Student Residence. He graduated from U of W in 1968, when the university still had some residences on its main campus two blocks east.

Located along Langside Street just north of Portage Avenue, the residence will be immediately north of the university’s new science complex, and will be flanked by U of W’s new day-care centre on the Furby Street side of the property.

Project manager Justin Bova of Man-Shield Construction explained that the two lower floors will be family units, while floors three through six will have one- and two-bedroom units for 168 students. The whole thing is 74,000 square feet.

U of W vice-president of finance Bill Balan said that the university and Manitoba Housing have arranged that 19 of the 25 lower units will go to single mothers and their kids. "They all have to be students, but it can be any post-secondary institution" that they attend, Balan said.

U of W will rent the other six units at market rates.

The university has been eager to find a residence as close to campus as possible for international, rural and aboriginal students.

Balan said that the residence’s capital fundraising campaign has covered much of the residence’s cost, but it includes a special pitch — donors can name each of the individual dorm rooms for $3,000 apiece.

Bova said that each student room has a bed, a desk, and a private bathroom and shower. In two-bedroom units, there are also a sitting area and kitchenette.

A highlight is the full-glass lounge and atrium at the building’s south end on the fifth and sixth floors, facing south and overlooking the science complex. That one’s up for naming rights too.

Balan said that the science complex and residence will connect to the main campus by a green corridor path, which he hopes would eventually connect into a bicycle route running west along St. Matthew Avenue.

"This would become the inner-city bicycle hub," Balan said. "We’re (also) looking at putting in a sweat lodge, a community feature."

Room rates will be $2,340 per student per term. U of W is finalizing a mandatory meal plan at the main U of W cafeteria at additional cost, and will be taking applications soon.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

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