New medical school building at SFU Surrey targeted by 2029

SFU aiming to build new medical school building next to Surrey Central SkyTrain by 2029

"Centre Block," located immediately north of Central City, is the proposed location of SFU Surrey's new medical school building. (Google Maps)

For the very first time, Simon Fraser University (SFU) has publicly suggested its proposed location for the construction of a new purpose-built building to accommodate the unique and major needs of the new medical school within the SFU Surrey campus in the core of Surrey City Centre.

This will be Western Canada’s first new medical school in more than half a century, with the plan to create the medical school for training much-needed additional doctors and nurses first announced by the provincial government a year ago.

Joy Johnson, the president and vice-chancellor of SFU, shared new details with Surrey City Council during a public meeting on Monday.

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She says the university is looking to establish the medical school within the Centre Block parcel, which is immediately west of SkyTrain Surrey Central Station and immediately north of Central City, where SFU Surrey is mainly located. Currently, Centre Block is occupied by the closed North Surrey Recreation Centre, TransLink’s major bus loop serving the SkyTrain station, and a surface parking lot.

“We would love to see the school located in Surrey’s Centre Block. That is our ambition. It would be transformative and catalyze economic growth in so many ways,” said Johnson.

Site plan for Centre Block at 10275 City Parkway, Surrey. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/City of Surrey)

Currently, SFU’s business case for the medical school is going through the provincial government’s treasury board, which includes a request for capital funding to build the facility. She says the university expects to receive a response from the provincial government very soon, possibly in a month, and they hope to be able to move forward very quickly.

The provincial government would like SFU to enroll the medical school’s first students by 2026, which would require an initial reliance on temporary spaces. The target is to have the new purpose-built permanent building completed by 2028/2029.

In order to achieve this timeline, Johnson continued, the municipal government needs to expedite the review process for the building project once the plans are approved by the provincial government.

The medical school building would also feature an “embedded clinic” where students can receive their training.

“The medical school will be purpose-built to train primary care and family practice physicians, focusing on underserved populations,” she said, before naming key partners such as Fraser Health Authority and First Nations Health Authority.

“The medical school is going to contribute to the health and well-being of the residents of Surrey.”

Currently, the City of Surrey, through its newly restarted Surrey City Development Corporation, has plans to redevelop the shuttered recreation centre and existing bus loop into a 738-ft-tall, 47-storey office tower and a 328-ft-tall, 19-storey office tower with office and “institutional” uses. Both towers combined would have a total building floor area of about 1.37 million sq ft, including the creation of one of the region’s new tallest buildings. The current off-street bus loop configuration would be replaced by an on-street bus exchange in the immediate vicinity.

The City’s long-term strategy for the City Centre states it anticipates SFU will acquire the surface parking lot parcel for the future development and expansion of its campus, entailing a 20-storey tower with 486,000 sq ft of floor area and an 11-storey building with 268,000 sq ft of floor area.

Currently, UBC’s medical school — with facilities based in the main Vancouver campus, UBC Hospital, Vancouver General Hospital, and St. Paul’s Hospital — is BC’s only medical school.

During the public meeting, Johnson also expressed SFU’s strong interest in building purpose-built student housing within Surrey.

September 2021 artistic rendering of Centre Block at 10275 City Parkway, Surrey. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/City of Surrey)

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