Nearly $90M student housing and dining hall project announced at VIU

Students attending Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C. are getting more on-campus housing options through a massive $87.8-million expansion project.
The project includes 266 new student housing beds and a dining hall by summer 2025.
The province announced it was providing $87-million towards the $87.8-million project on Friday.
"Post-secondary students need access to affordable housing to complete their studies, remove barriers to education and lay the foundation for their future – making them future-ready for the jobs tomorrow," said Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training, Anne Kang, in a statement.
The new housing will increase on-campus student accommodations from 536 beds to 802 beds.
"Secure, stable and affordable housing is essential for students to be successful at their studies," said VIU president and vice-chancellor, Deborah Saucier.
A joint statement by the province and VIU said construction on the nine-storey, hybrid mass-timber building will start in spring 2023.
The space will also include a common area for students to study and gather.
The added housing supports could help improve pressures on the surrounding rental market. Data from the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation shows, the City of Nanaimo’s rental vacancy rate is 1.6 per cent, with the average two-bedroom unit rental costing $1,360 per month.
The statistics are from October 2021. CMHC said it’ll be conducting its next Rental Market Survey in October – with those results published in early 2023.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Why wasn't the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over Canada?
Critics say the U.S. and Canada had ample time to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it drifted across North America. The alleged surveillance device initially approached North America near Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan 28. According to officials, it crossed into Canadian airspace on Jan. 30, travelling above the Northwest Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan before re-entering the U.S. on Jan 31.

Thieves cut huge hole in Ottawa restaurant wall to get at jewelry store next door
An Ottawa restaurateur says he was shocked to find his restaurant broken into and even more surprised to discover a giant hole in the wall that led to the neighbouring jewelry store.
Rescuers scramble in Turkiye, Syria after quake kills 4,000
Rescue workers and civilians passed chunks of concrete and household goods across mountains of rubble Monday, moving tons of wreckage by hand in a desperate search for survivors trapped by a devastating earthquake.
New details emerge ahead of Trudeau-premiers' health-care meeting
As preparations are underway for the anticipated health-care 'working meeting' between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's premiers on Tuesday, new details are emerging about how the much-anticipated federal-provincial gathering will unfold.
Quebec minister 'surprised' asylum seekers given free bus tickets from New York City
Quebec's immigration minister says she was 'surprised' to learn the City of New York is helping to provide free bus tickets to migrants heading north to claim asylum in Canada.
The world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook Turkiye and Syria on Monday, killing thousands of people. Here is a list of some of the world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000.
Mendicino: foreign-agent registry would need equity lens, could be part of 'tool box'
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says a registry to track foreign agents operating in Canada can only be implemented in lockstep with diverse communities.
Vaccine intake higher among people who knew someone who died of COVID-19: U.S. survey
A U.S. survey found that people who had a personal connection to someone who became ill or died of COVID-19 were more likely to have received at least one shot of the vaccine compared to those who didn’t have any loved ones who had been impacted by the disease.
opinion | Don Martin: Alarms going off over health-care privatization? Such an out-of-touch waste of hot political air
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'