A bustling waterfront arts community, nestled in downtown Toronto, will soon be the home of Ontario’s first French-language university.

The Université de l’Ontario français (UOF), slated to open in the fall of 2021, will be housed in the Daniels Waterfront complex, at the corner of Queens Quay East and Lower Jarvis Street, according to a government announcement Wednesday revealing the location of the long-awaited school.

Federal Official Languages Minister Mélanie Joly, who joined provincial and municipal politicians for the announcement, about the first autonomous French-language university in Ontario, called the school a “victory for Franco-Ontarians” and “a historic step.”

“This new institution will enable the next generation of students (to) study in French in the heart of Canada’s largest city, “ said Joly, at the Daniels Waterfront City of the Arts Community.

Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano said UOF “will provide francophones studying in Ontario the opportunity to receive the skills and training they need for a rewarding career that meets labour market needs.”

The federal government will cover start-up costs of $63 million over the next four years — then, the province will pitch in the same amount for the following four years. After that, UOF will be funded like all other universities in the province.

The university will join George Brown College and OCAD University, which also have a presence in Daniels, a mixed-use community that includes Artscape Daniels Launchpad, commercial space and residential towers.

UOF will occupy the second floor of 9 Lower Jarvis Street, which is still under construction. Over the next year, work will continue to get the 50,000-square-foot premises ready for classes in September 2021.

Dyane Adam, chair of the board of governors for UOF, said Toronto is an ideal location for the province’s first French-language university because the number of French schools and French-immersion programs in the region are “booming.”

“What we have here is a need for post-secondary education in French,” she told the Star. “Also, the need for bilingual professionals is very important.

“This is the reason why our governments have been looking at the need for this institution for years — finally, we managed to pull it through.”

She noted Ontario’s Francophone community numbers nearly 700,000, with about 240,000 living in the Toronto area.

Although long dreamed of by the Francophone community, the project was almost shelved. The previous Liberal government in Ontario supported a French-language university, but after the Progressive Conservatives were elected in 2018, they announced they were cancelling the project. The Ford government eventually reaffirmed its commitment to the university prior to the last federal election.

Scrapping the planned university was one of the reasons MPP Amanda Simard (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell) quit the Progressive Conservative caucus in 2018. Initially an independent, last month she joined the Liberals.

“I don’t think (the Tories) realized, at the time, how important this was for the francophone community,” said Simard, who’s francophone and from a largely French-speaking riding, where many were frustrated by the initial cancellation. “This is a project that was in the works for years and years.”

Simard, who was at the announcement, called Wednesday a “happy day,” noting the university would not be coming to fruition “without the intervention of the federal government.”

“I’m glad that we can finally move forward,” she told the Star, adding, “While we were fighting to keep this (project) alive, we put on the backburners so many other things.”

Although the City of Cornwall tried to toss its name into the ring as a possible location for the university, Adam said Toronto was always the top choice.

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The area where the UOF will be situated, just south of the Gardiner Expressway, is an old industrial hub. In recent years, it has seen various revitalization projects, ranging from Sugar Beach to Corus Quay, which is the Canadian headquarters for Corus Entertainment.

Currently in the works is the Waterfront Innovation Centre, set to open in 2021 as a new startup hotspot that will include, among others, the University of Toronto, in partnership with MaRS Discovery District.

“You have a concentration of educational and innovation organizations that are really coming on board,” said Adam. “This is the innovation corridor … Seven to 10 years down the road, when the university will have reached maturity, I don’t know who will be there on that corridor, but there will be a lot more organizations.”

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While the area isn’t easily accessible by TTC — you can get there by bus, but it’s roughly a 15-minute walk to the nearest streetcar and subway stop — the City plans to improve transit there.

In 2021, UOF will begin offering degree programs in urban studies, human plurality, digital culture, global economy and pedagogy in higher education. And, it will partner with other universities and colleges to offer other programming, such as a degree in management.

The plan is to grow the school from about 1,000 to 2,000 students in its first decade, which will depend on funding and program development.