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SYDNEY, N.S.

A consultant hired by the province is currently reviewing how, where and when a new Nova Scotia Community College Marconi campus will be built in downtown Sydney.

But that didn’t stop NSCC president and CEO Don Bureaux from discussing his hopes and dreams of a waterfront campus for Sydney at a luncheon organized by the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

Dartmouth-based design firm, Ekistics, was awarded the $145,000 contract by the provincial government in March to begin an eight-month study on the NSCC move to the downtown area.

Bureaux is bullish about the future of the campus and told the business audience that construction could begin sometime in 2019.

“The study will be done this fall. We’re hoping the ground will be broken next year and hoping for a 2022 or 2023 opening. It’ll take three to four years to build the campus,” Bureaux said.

Ekistics has been tasked with consulting with those affected by the massive relocation project.

The study will look at space requirements and potential locations, campus design, student impacts and transportation needs.

That “kind of feeling,” he noted, among some members of the community to see the campus downtown has been around for a “long time” and it’s time to act on it.

Bureaux focused on the new campus and how it should be able to move forward with innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in the same manner the current campus adjacent to Cape Breton University has done for several years.

“We want this campus to honour the uniqueness of the local community. We want to be able to celebrate tourism and hospitality, culinary arts, the IT sector,” he said.

“We want to work with the community so that we can become one. We want to make sure we work with our Mi’kmaq partners to make sure we honour the traditions of the Aboriginal communities.”

Bureaux also noted there is a willingness among those at NSCC to work with the port of Sydney and a group of investors proposing a multi-million-dollar mixed-use development on the Sydney waterfront to provide students with the skillset they would need to apply for any jobs resulting from those plans.

Municipal Affairs Minister Derek Mombourquette was in the audience Tuesday and spoke briefly, reaffirming Premier Stephen McNeil’s promise made last November to relocate the campus.

“The government has committed to this. This is happening,” said Mombourquette, who serves as MLA for Sydney-Whitney Pier.

Still, there remains no publicly available figures on how much it would cost to move the campus and its 1,200-member student body, or how the project could be cost-shared among the various levels of government.

The NSCC Dartmouth Waterfront campus, renamed the Ivany campus, cost approximately $50 million to build when construction started in August 2004 on the Nova Scotia Hospital property. The 267,000-square-foot building was opened in September 2007.

At the November announcement, McNeil said the cost to move the Marconi campus would be “enormous” but that a review on the estimated costs was already underway.

Related stories: Firm chosen to study move

NSCC Marconi campus to relocate to downtown Sydney

chris.shannon@cbpost.com

Twitter: @cbpost_chris