By Joanne Curry and Steve Dooley / For the Now-Leader
The neighbourhood now known as Surrey City Centre was always an optimistic vision, and in 2002, a lot of people just couldn’t see it.
The big idea – conceived in the 1990s by the now-late architect Bing Thom – was to build a Class A office building over the undersubscribed Surrey Place shopping centre, and install a world-class university to energize the neighbourhood.
Coupled with the SkyTrain extension, Thom argued that the project would catalyze development, transforming troubled Whalley into a thriving city centre for Surrey and a second downtown Metro Vancouver.
By 2002, however, Surrey Place was Western Canada’s largest construction site, and the newly created Technical University of BC (TechBC) was struggling.
But when government decided to close TechBC down – and Surrey citizens and community leaders reacted in disappointment – Simon Fraser University stepped up, assuring that Surrey still got a university and that TechBC students had a path to graduation.
That began a 20-year transformation, supported at every step by an engaged community, supported by SFU’s Surrey Advisory Council, with members from the City of Surrey, the Surrey School District, Fraser Health, the Surrey Board of Trade, the Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association and other business and community leaders.
The expansion of the campus along with growth at Kwantlen Polytechnic University lifted transition rates for local students and SFU continued to support Surrey teachers with our Faculty of Education Professional Development and Graduate Programs.
TechBC also left a positive legacy; SFU recruited TechBC faculty members who helped start SFU Surrey’s inaugural program, Interactive Arts & Technology, and inspired other distinctive SFU Surrey offerings, Mechatronics Systems Engineering and Sustainable Energy Engineering.
The Sustainable Energy Engineering Building on University Boulevard in Surrey. (Photo: sfu.ca)
Leveraging an evident entrepreneurial spirit, SFU Surrey also started Coast Capital Venture Connection, an entrepreneurship incubator that has served more than 13,500 students across SFU.
During this period, SFU earned its reputation as Canada’s best comprehensive university, ultimately embracing a vision as Canada’s engaged university: we learned in Surrey the benefits of a city-university partnership and strategic community engagement, a lesson we now apply in our Burnaby and downtown Vancouver campuses.
The synergistic effects of a top-tier research university and a supportive community proved Bing Thom’s vision. The City of Surrey moved boldly to relocate its City Hall and to add Surrey Central Library to the neighbourhood. And as SFU added our second building, which houses our Sustainable Energy Engineering program, private sector developers have built dozens of major residential and commercial projects.
Surrey City Centre is now a thriving downtown and a regional city centre south of the Fraser River – all gathered (we’re proud to say) around the re-named University Boulevard.
Now, we are building for the future. For example, in 2020, we collaborated with other B.C. universities to establish the Surrey-based Quantum Algorithms Institute, designed to solve challenges in Canada’s burgeoning technology sector, generate talent for industry, and prepare students for rewarding tech careers, many in Surrey itself.
And this year, we celebrated $17 million in federal and provincial funding for a new BC Centre for Agritech Innovation, helping small and medium-sized enterprises scale-up and commercialize agricultural technologies.
Most exciting is the Surrey-based medical school. Developed in partnership with the First Nations Health Authority and the Fraser Health Authority, SFU’s medical school will incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing in a community-focused and culturally relevant program to educate primary care physicians.
It’s exciting that the province has reconfirmed its commitment to this transformative and badly needed medical school.
SFU Surrey is ready.
If the start of SFU Surrey looked rocky – or if the emergence of Surrey City Centre seemed unlikely – there clearly was never any doubt among the students, alumni, families, business and community leaders, politicians and other supporters in Surrey and beyond.
We at SFU couldn’t have beeen happier to share our 20th birthday in Surrey with them all on Sept. 9, and to redouble our efforts in the years to come.
Joanne Curry is SFU Vice President External and inaugural SFU Surrey Executive Director. Steve Dooley is SFU Surrey Executive Director.
edit@surreynowleader.com
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