Quebec to give McGill the old Royal Vic site, plus $37M for design plan

A portion of the abandoned Royal Victoria Hospital will become part of McGill University's downtown Montreal campus, officials announced Friday.

Quebec has committed to ceding part of the property over to McGillalong with $37 million so the schoolcan begin planningthe site'stransformation with its heritage in mind.

The site's transfer will be managed by the Socit qubcoise des infrastructures (SQI).

Cameron Charlebois, the executive director of McGill's campus planning and development, said campus designs will be completed by 2020 and construction will begin in 2021.

"It's hard to convey how critical this is," Charlebois said of the announcement.

Proposed upgrades were unveiled last March, showingthe Royal Victransformed into a newpavilion dedicated to climate change, sustainable development and public policy.

However, the government is funding plans that will go well beyond what has been created to date.

DinuBumbaru, policy director for Heritage Montreal, said Friday that the plansdeveloped so far are"more serious than sketches on a restaurant place mat, but the announcement today makes it so much more tangible."

"The fate of this landmark is now secure after being vacant for almost threeyears," he said.

Bumbarusaid the project wouldn't just be office space, but a "landmark project to enhance Mount Royal."

It's unclear however, where the money for the projected$690-million renovations will come from.

The university said in March that it hoped the government would absorb the majority of thosecosts.

Developing plans for the Royal Vic date back to when it was transitioning out of being a hospital.

In 2015, McGill launched a call for tenders to conduct a feasibility study to assess the technical, financial and heritage-related challenges of transforming the site.

It came after patients were moved from the site to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Glen site in April 2015.

In the years since, the Royal Vic has been empty and coststhe MUHC $7.5 million annually to maintain.