New Bookstore, Science Facility, Innovation Complex & Welcome Centre Planned for the University of Windsor

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The University of Windsor has big plans in the works — aside from their announcement yesterday regarding the development of a downtown campus.

University President Dr. Alan Wildeman, in a speech to the 135th Annual General Meeting of the Windsor‐Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce, outlined plans for a fully revitalized main campus.

A new Welcome Centre will be constructed near the Centre for Engineering Innovation.  The Welcome Centre will be a place where prospective students and parents, alumni and donors, and visitors, can come and get advice, directions, or assistance.  The Welcome Centre will also provide a new home for the University of Windsor Bookstore that is more centralized for visitors to campus.

Also in the works is a parking garage and Innovation Centre, positioned adjacent to the Centre for Engineering Innovation and across from the Odette School of Business.  University facility planners hope to turn the California‐Wyandotte intersection into an ‘innovation complex’ for the Windsor-Essex region.  Dr. Wildeman cited such examples of successful innovation centres as Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre and the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.

The University also plans to remove parts of Essex Hall and consolidate Science departments into a facility with new teaching labs.

A Student Services Hub is also in the works:  a location where students can find what they need and spend less time running around in uncertainty wondering where to get the services they need.  Students will no longer have to go to multiple buildings to be served by the offices of the Registrar, Cashier and Academic Awards.

Yesterday, the University announced formal plans for its Downtown Campus which will see the Music, Visual Arts, Film Production, Social Work, and Professional Education programs all locate to the city’s core.

In 2013, the University of Windsor will celebrate its 50th anniversary.  Dr. Wildeman said that the University’s Board of Governors have — through this ambitious plan — laid the ground work for the next fifty years of campus life.