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The B.C. government says it will spend up to $113 million to build a new home for the Emily Carr University of Art and Design at the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver.

Premier Christy Clark announced today (January 23) that the total cost of the visual, media, and design facility will be $134 million, with the university and donors being expected to come up with the remaining $21 million in funding.

"Emily Carr University had outgrown its old home," Clark said in a news release, referring to the Granville Island campus. "Too much success is a nice problem to have, and just as their graduates move onto bigger and better career options, we're pleased to help the university move into a bigger and better home."

The government expects construction to begin in May 2014 and wrap up by July 2016. The new facility will occupy 26,600 gross square metres and contain areas for studio and academic programs, learning support, administration, and student and campus services.

In February, the process of selecting a company to "design, build, finance and maintain the new campus" is set to kick off with the issuing of a request for qualifications.

"Emily Carr's Great Northern Way Campus will be at the centre of a new social, cultural, educational, entertainment and economic engine for British Columbia. This is a historic moment for our institution and for championing creativity and innovation in our province," Ron Burnett, president and vice-chancellor of ECUAD, said in the government's news release. "The government of B.C.'s investment in a purpose-built campus will provide students, faculty and the community a world class state-of-the-art facility for 21st-century learning. It will be a home to match our global reputation as a leader in art, design, media and applied research."

In March 2012, the province announced the university would develop a "comprehensive business case" for a new facility at the Great Northern Way Campus with capacity for 1,800 visual, media, and design art students.

A new campus for ECUAD was promised in the Gordon Campbell government's 2010 throne speech.

ECUAD jointly owns the Great Northern Way Campus with the British Columbia Institute of Technology, the University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University. The campus at Great Northern Way and East 1st Avenue in the False Creek Flats currently houses the Centre for Digital Media.

ECUAD was founded in 1925 as the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. It became the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1995, and received university status in 2008.