City strikes partnership with George Brown College, hopes to bring satellite campus to Mount Dennis neighbourhood

A satellite George Brown campus could eventually be built in Toronto’s Mount Dennis neighbourhood as part of a new partnership between the city and the college.

Mayor John Tory announced on Wednesday morning that the city and the agency responsible for managing its real estate assets – CreateTO - will work collaboratively with George Brown to explore opportunities for a new campus in the neighbourhood, which will soon be served by the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

“This represents a huge opportunity for us to do some serious city building here together with George Brown College,” he said. “You know, Mount Denis is a wonderful community but it is underserved in the context of easy access to post-secondary education and I think the presence of a campus here will be critical to the future growth and success of the community and most importantly its residents, including access to opportunity and access to economic development.”

CreateTO was asked last year to identify city-owned land in the Mount Dennis neighbourhood which could be utilized for a post-secondary campus.

From there the city began reaching out to colleges and universities to gauge their interest in building a campus in the neighbourhood, ultimately striking a partnership with George Brown.

CreateTO has so far identified three sites which would be suitable for a campus, including the York Civic Centre on Eglinton Avenue West, a Green P parking lot at 1169 Weston Road and a parcel of land near Eglinton Avenue West and Photography Drive which is located near a future mixed-use development.

Tory said that the next step in the process will be the completion of a feasibility study, which will finalize the location of the campus and take a closer at how the presence of George Brown could be used to provide additional benefits to the community.

That report is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2023.

“We wouldn’t be bothered to have the feasibility study done if we weren’t determined to do it. This is something whose time has come for this part of the city that is now going to be better served by public transit,” he said. “If we're going to lift these neighborhoods up that are ones that have struggled, it's things like this that are going to help to do that both in terms of the access to education, but also just the jobs and economic activity that will happen here that will go alongside a facility like this and start to make these communities more complete.”

The report released by CreateTO last month did not favour one of the city-owned sites over the other but did note that the establishment of a post-secondary campus in Mount Denis, wherever in the neighbourhood it is located, represents a “potentially transformational city-building opportunity for a traditionally under-served area of Toronto.”

Mount Dennis is one of 31 Neighbourhood Improvement Areas in Toronto.

“In Mount Dennis, we see a community that is brimming with potential and opportunity,” George Brown College President Dr. Gervan Fearon said during Wednesday’s news conference. “It is home to a diverse and engaged citizen and set of communities, representing a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds and income.”