The University of Toronto’s vice-president, operations and Real Estate Partnerships Scott Mabury has provided more information on the university’s “four corners” strategy.
In an interview with U of T News, Mabury stated that the strategy is designed to provide a framework for how the university will discover and develop real estate opportunities to help sustain the university financially. This will mainly be done by providing students, staff, and faculty innovation spaces, ancillary offices, and affordable housing.
“We have significant assets,” said Mabury. “We spent a year studying those assets and what their opportunities could be. We recognize the very significant demand and need U of T has around providing more affordable residential options for our faculty, staff and students, and more innovation space for the burgeoning number of start-up companies that wish to continue their development within the innovation ecosystem, of which U of T plays such an important part.”
“Almost the entire university budget – 87 per cent – comes from students paying tuition fees or government operating grants,” continued Mabury. “That’s not financially sustainable. We need to grow the remaining 13 per cent, to increase the resilience and sustainability of the institutional budget.”
To do this, the University of Toronto hopes to develop their real estate assets and deliver amenity spaces that will benefit the members of the university and, in turn, the university itself.
“The objective here will be to generate revenue that we can invest back into the university’s academic mission.”
A new science building will be introduced on the UTM campus as part of the innovative “four corners” strategy.
