Cambrian sells residence buildings for $24M

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Cambrian College has sold its residence buildings for $24 million to a private company called Campus Living Centres. Photo by Marg Seregelyi.

Cambrian College has sold its residence buildings for $24 million to a private company called Campus Living Centres. Photo by Marg Seregelyi.

Jan 31, 2012- 12:10 PM

Campus Living Centres 'knows their business'

By: Heidi Ulrichsen - Sudbury Northern Life Staff

Cambrian College has agreed to sell its residence buildings for $24 million to a private company called Campus Living Centres.

It has also agreed to lease seven acres of its land, located south of the Norcat building, to Campus Living Centres. The company will build new residences there.

Cambrian president Sylvia Barnard said the college's board of governors made this decision because the province does not provide any funding to pay for residences. The college is currently carrying about $21 million in mortgages for its 676 residence beds.

“By having that level of mortgage debt on our books, it makes it very difficult for Cambrian to be innovative in looking at other opportunities,” she said.

Campus Living Centres was chosen to purchase the buildings after the college put out a request for proposals. Cambrian will still own the land upon which the residences are built.

It will also set the rental rates for the units along with Campus Living Centres, thus ensuring that students are still paying reasonable rates, Barnard said.
Campus Living Centres, a Canadian company which, according to its website, is the largest owner and operator of student housing in Canada, has already been operating the college's residences for the last few years.

“Campus Living knows their business, and that is providing residential life experience,” she said.

“We've seen a very large drop in the amount of alcohol and alcohol-related incidents in residence that are happening because Campus Living is providing an environment that ... distracts them and gives them the kinds of experiences they want to have, in a very social and safe environment.”

In terms of Campus Living Centres building new residences, Barnard said there's a need for more residence space at Cambrian. The college ends up putting 60 or 70 students a year on waiting lists for residence rooms.

“A lot of those students end up couch surfing,” Barnard said. “A lot also end up not coming to college because they can't find a place to live.”

There's especially a need for residences for mature students, she said, so Cambrian has directed Campus Living Centres to gear the new facilities to this type of student.

“We have more mature students coming to Sudbury, and they're looking for an opportunity to live year-round, because many of them are getting jobs in the summertime,” Barnard said.

“Some are coming with children or families. There are going to be units available for lease for a 12-month period instead of eight months. They'll be much more family-oriented and mature students-oriented.”

Campus Living Centres did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Posted by Arron Pickard
 

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8 Comments

  • duhduhduh 2/4/2012 5:24:38 PM - Report Abuse

    Sell it off to the private sector, means increase rental rates for students who will be accessing Sudbury Food Bank for relief. Also much higher loans to pay off when they graduate from trades that have no apprenticeship program within a 400 km distance and will work for minimum wage with overseas immigrants with City Welding-only if they are bilingual and don't know safety rules.

  • townie 2/2/2012 8:30:38 AM - Report Abuse

    Thatcher did it, Reagan did it, Mulroney and Harris did it : artificially boosting your bottom line by selling public assets to make you look good at budget time. Look at Air Canada, since they have been privatized, we bail them out more often than ever. Look at Ontario Hyrdo / Hydro One : we are still paying off their debt while american companies bought our power plants and are making billions off the consumer. Sylvia you should have taken some history lessons.

  • Justme002 2/1/2012 6:52:20 PM - Report Abuse

    The fact is that campus living has been running the residence for over a year now, therefore there isn't going to much change went it comes to services and Cambrian hasn't staffed the residence since they took over.

    This is a good thing because at this point the older residence buildings are in serious need of repair/renos and as stated in the article, government funding doesn't cover non-academic cost like residence maintenance. That means any repair would need to come from the college's profits and there are none...Cambrian has been in a deficit for several years.

    Another reason this is good is because without a $20 million dollar mortgage on their books, the college could now move forward with securing funds to build their new medical building to house the successful nursing, paramedic, med lab, med radiation, and dental hygiene program. By improving facilities for these programs they can draw more student to the college and city.

    People always look for the negative but remember, Cambrian is in the Education business not the Real Estate business...and Campus living isn't only in the real estate business they're in the student lifestyle business.

  • trialberank 2/1/2012 10:59:13 AM - Report Abuse

    Bottom line here is simple. Look at the keyword used in this article's subtitle "Campus Living Centres knows their business" Got it? Business....ultimately this is about dollars and not about students. This is about maximizing profit and has nothing to do with student life. Are we supposed to believe that Cambrian, a "business" that has been housing students for what 40 years all of a sudden doesnt know how to manage these types of properties? We are supposed to believe that Campus Living which has no affiliation to the school or its relationship to its students in any shape whatsoever will somehow improve or even maintain the level of student services currently being provided? No....they will do what all companies do when they are outsourced any function or process for a company. They will come in, replace strong labour secured positions with private low paying positions. The costs for the students will increase. The services will be degraded. The synergies that already exist between the school and the student living homes will become convoluted and complicated for students to manage (but who care right, students shouldn't be concentrating on their studies, they should be spending 4 hours a day on a 800 number to India that Campus Living will supply them to find out how to register a complaint/issue/or whatever) and all of this is because of that one key word....business. I am not a communist, and I do believe in the free market, but would you (for example) want your local hospital to outsource its bed cleaning services to an outside agency? Some business cannot be fragmented. So be careful what you ask for Cambrian. Student life is VERY important to perspective students, and if you let some second hand whore company come in and manage that very crucial aspect of your package student life, you might end up finding yourself struggling in the end...all in the sake of BUSINESS

  • ChrisRedfield 2/1/2012 12:34:10 AM - Report Abuse

    As if the rent for on campus living wasn't already high enough. Last I checked, it worked out to about $700 a month, for a shared unit.

  • maddog331 2/1/2012 12:21:41 AM - Report Abuse

    @Mike: It doesn't say Cambrian couldn't carry the mortgage. Selling off this debt (and this opportunity for profit) frees up borrowing power for Cambrian to build other things, to expand existing programs and start new ones.

  • Corruption Killer 1/31/2012 5:31:33 PM - Report Abuse

    New landlord normally means increased rent.

  • Mike from Sudbury 1/31/2012 2:20:57 PM - Report Abuse

    So, Campus Living Centres can carry a $24 million debt, retire the debt and make a profit but Cambrian couldn't carry $22 million and retire the debt??

    Assume the position Cambrian students.
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