St. Clair College received $2-million in additional funding from the province to upgrade aging facilities.
The college will received an increase of $1.6-million for a total of $2.5-million under the Facility Renewal Program (FRP) and a $458,000 bump to $763,000 for the College Equipment Renewal Fund (CERF) for 2020-2021.
Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls made the announcement at the college's Chatham Campus at 1001 Grand Ave. W. Friday.
St. Clair's Vice President of Communications John Fairley says the college has buildings that are 50 years old with $42-million in deferred maintenance projects.
"This helps us cover some of those cost at both our campuses in Windsor as well as our campus in Chatham," he added. "When you get a little bit of extra money it helps out to at least prioritize what we can put some of this extra money towards that we weren't counting on."
Fairley says upgrading lighting, heating, and cooling systems at older facilities is on the list — improvements that could free up cash for projects down the road.
"There's obviously less cost in running modern equipment, so those are the kinds of bonuses that we have when we start looking at replacing and doing things with the maintenance list," he says.
The Ontario government is investing $144-million province wide under the FRP and $20-million through the CERF in 2020-2021.
Several of the buildings on the University of Windsor's main campus fall under the FRP program.
Director of Public Affairs John Colman tells AM800 News the university hasn't received word on funding yet, "but we welcome the initiative, and look forward to receiving more details."