Waterloo buys five BlackBerry buildings

If you’ve ever made a University of Waterloo-themed Monopoly game board, prepare to make some significant revisions to it.

On Friday, the University of Waterloo and BlackBerry announced that property at the corner of Phillip and Columbia will be changing hands, effective February 14, 2014.

The University of Waterloo is purchasing five buildings—BlackBerry 1, BlackBerry 2, BlackBerry 3, BlackBerry 4, and BlackBerry 16—and is leasing two of them back to BlackBerry for up to five years.

The $41M deal adds 300,000 square feet of space to the University of Waterloo’s campus footprint, in addition to more than 1,000 parking spaces. Under the lease agreement, BlackBerry will continue to use buildings 2 and 4, which amounts to 150,000 square feet of space.

“Space is our biggest constraint,” said Tim Jackson, the university’s vice-president, university relations. “The opportunity to get space that is essentially on our campus was one that we couldn’t let slip by.”

With the land being contiguous to existing University of Waterloo property, the university is in many ways the natural acquirer. The property is located on the northeast corner of the University of Waterloo campus, adjacent to East Campus Hall on Phillip Street and opposite the General Services Complex and the Commissary, across the Ring Road and the railway tracks. The borders of the university’s main campus now stretch from Phillip and Columbia to Columbia and Westmount, Westmount to University to University and Phillip, with the exception of the University Shops Plaza.

“These buildings give us flexibility to meet the needs of students, faculty and staff,” says Jackson.

The university takes possession on February 14, 2014.

A phased plan to occupy the buildings is in development. A two-staged occupation plan allows the university to deal with immediate space crunches while planning for future expansion as the second half of the space comes on-line in five years’ time. The final allocation of the space will be at the discretion of the Vice-President, Academic & Provost.

 

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All's well that ends well as the holidays begin

Is anybody here? Anyone? If you are, feast your eyes on this clever Christmas tree in the Biology department crafted by co-op student Rebecca Co. Have a Merry Flaskmas! Thanks to Jennifer Nowack for the image.

Today is the last working day for 2013. In a few hours, the university will close for its longest holiday of the year, and apart from a few people providing round-the-clock essential services, the institution will sleep until 2014 under an ice-encrusted blanket of snow.

Today's also the day that unofficial grades begin to appear in Quest. Registered students can view their unofficial marks for the Fall term beginning today.

Food Services operations are largely closed today, with exceptions including the University Club, Tim Hortons in South Campus Hall, which is open from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and the Tim Hortons in the SLC, which is open 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. A full listing of holiday operating hours can be found on the Food Services website.

The Dana Porter and Davis Centre Libraries are open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. today.

The Computing Help & Information Place (CHIP) Service Desk in MC1052 will be open for regular hours today — 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.— and its services include Media Resources, Equipment Loans, Software Distribution, Exam Scanning, and Helpdesk Services.

All Retail Services stores—The Book Store, Waterloo Store, Write Stuff, Watcard, Campus Tech and Media.doc locations across campus—will be open until 4:30 p.m. today, in case you need to do some last-minute shopping before heading home from work.

The Physical Activities Complex (PAC) and the Columbia Icefield are open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today.

Central Stores will be providing normal scheduled service today.

Health Services will close at 4:30 p.m. today and will reopen on Thursday, January 2 at 8:30 a.m. Evening clinics (until 7:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday) will restart on Monday, January 6. Students with medical problems over the holidays are encouraged to first call Telehealth Ontario at 1-866-797-0000 for medical advice.

Residences, with the exception of Columbia Lake Village-North, are all closed for the holiday break. There are short-term accommodation options available.

The School of Architecture's administrative offices are open today from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., as is the Musagetes Library from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the Melville Café from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The School of Pharmacy and the Waterloo Stratford Campus are both open as well.

The Summit Centre for the Environment up in Huntsville will be closed at the end of the business day today and won't be open again until Monday, January 6. Inquiries can be directed to the Summit Centre's main campus location in EV1 343 starting Saturday, January 3, 2014, and the Huntsville centre will be back up and running on Monday.

Rick Zalagenas, Director of Maintenance and Utilities, says building conditions will be held at normal night and weekend setback temperatures starting tonight, and most ventilation will be turned off. "The university is closed," he stresses, "and anyone who elects to be here should not be expecting normal services and temperatures." Zalagenas invites everybody's help with conservation, ensuring all appliances, office equipment and unused fumehoods are turned off. "And please make very sure all windows are closed before you leave."

The time has also come for laboratories to be shut down for the holiday break. The safety office has told managers of laboratories what precautions they should take before they lock the doors and head out for a holiday break. A web page dealing with the Christmas and New Year's shutdown warns that, among other things, labs have to be prepared for the power going off during the holidays: "Due to winter weather conditions utilities, especially electricity, may be affected. It is a general rule that all laboratory processes be designed to safely survive a service failure." Emergencies can be reported to ext. 33793 and concerns relating to hazardous materials spills to ext. 22222.

Custodial staff who usually work later in the evening will start today's shift at 4:00 p.m. and work until midnight. During the holiday break, grounds staff will be on call only to do winter maintenance of emergency routes on campus as requested by UW Police or the Central Plant.

Police will begin locking the buildings on campus at 5:00 p.m. today. Buildings will remain locked over the holidays, the police wish to remind everyone, and anybody who needs to get in will have to have made prior arrangements with the faculty or department responsible for the building. Be sure to secure or remove your valuables before leaving.

Most university buildings remain closed until January 2, 2014.

 

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Your guide to a campus in hibernation

From tomorrow through January 1, the libraries (including the Musagetes Library in the School of Architecture), Retail Services stores, food services outlets, recreational facilities, and offices will all be closed. Phones will ring off the hook if called, and email messages will pile up unanswered. This silent snowman at St. Paul's will be standing guard (assuming he's still standing) as the only witness to a snowball fight that left the building scarred (at least until the temperature increases). Thanks to Eugenia Xenos Anderson for the image.

All parking lots will be open and free throughout the holidays, except for lot D under Needles Hall and the Early Childhood Education Centre (ECEC) lot at the Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology (PAS) building. Gates to the lots around campus are being opened one by one in the course of this afternoon, says parking manager Sharon Rumpel, who also notes that there's a bargain rate of $5 for the day in effect today at lot D and at the "visitor" portion of lot H near University Avenue. From now until the morning of January 2, there's no need to put money into any pay-and-display machines.

Students who live in residence and are leaving their cars on campus over the break should register with Parking Services and will be told just where to put the car, for the sake of snowplow operations. Enforcement of parking rules on fire routes and in handicapped spaces will continue, the university police say.

Snow removal on the main campus over the holiday period will be "limited", according to the plant operations department. "Grounds staff will respond to serious snow issues," is the official word, especially to clear priority areas such as the ring road.

A major exception to the 9-day campus closing is the Student Life Centre. Scott Pearson, Operations Manager of the SLC, writes that the building will be open throughout the holiday as always. The Turnkey Desk (519-888-4434) "will be staffed 24 hours a day with friendly Turnkeys to provide assistance to those who stay on campus," says Pearson. "Hot coffee is always available. Food bank hampers are also available at the desk".

The Airporter will make its usual stops at the Student Life Centre.

Most of the businesses in the Student Life Centre will shut down entirely throughout the break including Apple II Hair Salon, Life Touch Photography, Campus Tech, Tim Hortons, Brubakers, The Bombshelter, International News, Student Health Pharmacy, WatCard and SOS Physiotherapy. CIBC will have its basement branch open on December 24, 27, 28, 30 and 31. The branch will close early on both Christmas Eve & New Year's Eve. Regular hours will resume on January 2.

Campus Dentist will have limited hours on December 23 and 30 only. Call extension 84607 for details.

GO Transit and Greyhound will continue to service campus throughout the shutdown, although some days the schedules will operate on holiday scheduling. Full ticketing and travel information is available at the Turnkey Desk. Pearson also states that "on New Year's Eve all transportation on GO Transit is free system-wide after 8:00 p.m. No Tickets are required."

The School of Pharmacy and the Waterloo Stratford campus will both be following the university's main campus shutdown schedule.

The School of Architecture in Cambridge will remain open for students and faculty to use their offices and studies during the closure period between December 24 and January 2, but facilities will be in "closure-mode" with minimal heating. There will be limited access to the Melville Café and the Riverside Gallery, with the café open from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 24 and from Thursday, December 26 to Tuesday, December 31, and the gallery open from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Friday, December 27, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, December 28, 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 29, and 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 31. The School building will be completely closed on Wednesday, December 25 and Wednesday, January 1. Regular hours will commence on Thursday, January 2.

“Co-operative Education and Career Action will be closed during the break and re-open on January 2," says Olaf Naese of the co-op department. "For co-op students still needing January-April 2014 employment, JobMine postings will resume on January 3. Graduating student interviews will continue as of January 6."

"If you notice an outage of the campus network or any major IST-maintained computing facility, you can leave a voice message with the CHIP Service Desk at 519-888-4357 or submit a request online," writes Peggy Day. "Voicemail and Request items will be checked daily."

There is one large-scale system outage scheduled for Friday, December 27. Quest will be unavailable from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. that day, but that's the tip of the iceberg. Check the sidebar for more information about the impact the outage will have on university systems.

Quest service will remain available during the Christmas holidays subject to unexpected system outages, however support for Quest will not be available from 3:30 p.m. today through to 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 2. Any support issues that arise during the holiday period will be addressed beginning January 2 after 8:30 a.m.

Not all work will grind to a halt over the holidays. A number of construction and renovation projects will continue throughout the break, including the Science Teaching Complex, the Health Services Addition, and the Needles Hall expansion. Don Haffner reports that large beams for the Science Teaching Complex will be installed on Friday, December 27, which means that the Needles Hall road will be closed to all traffic, and the parking lot under Needles Hall will not be accessible between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Friday. Access to the area will be through the EV3 north side. Work will also continue in the Quantum-Nano Centre.

Companies and services in the David Johnston Research + Technology Park will set their own holiday schedules.

 

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Looking ahead to the New Year

Thursday, January 2 will be the first working day of the Winter 2014 term, with lectures commencing Monday, January 6. Offices, athletics facilities, libraries, food services and retail outlets will begin re-opening on January 2.

Food Services locations will begin re-opening on Thursday, January 2 and will get up to full operations by Monday, January 6. Check their site for detailed hours.

The Book Store, Waterloo Store, and Write Stuff reopen on Thursday, January 2 at 9:00 a.m., and will be open Saturday, January 4 and Sunday, January 5 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Special extended hours will be in effect for the first week of January. WatCard, Campus Tech, and Media.Doc also open their doors January 2 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Feds Used Books is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 2 and Friday, January 2, and will be open on Saturday, January 4 and Sunday, January 5 as well (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days). On Monday, January 6 it will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries will be open for reduced intersession hours between January 2 and 5, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and noon to 5:00 p.m. on weekends.

The Physical Activities Complex and Columbia Icefield will be open at 7:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 2.

"All Waterloo Residences will re-open at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 5 for residence move-in," writes Sabrina Hutchinson. "Students have until 12 noon on Monday, January 6 to check into their rooms and we except to welcome almost 800 new students to rez for the winter term!"

Finally, the Daily Bulletin returns on the morning of Thursday, January 2. Any emergency announcements before that date will be made on the university's home page.

 

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A heartfelt thanks to Daily Bulletin contributors

The Daily Bulletin does not write itself. Throughout the past year, I have had the privilege of working with a number of talented people across the university and beyond who have provided engaging content and hopefully helped keep you informed about the university community to which you belong.

I would like to recognize and thank the following contributors, and if I have forgotten anyone, my sincere apologies (and also sincere thanks):

Dan Ackerman, Eugenia Xenos Anderson, Suman Armitage, Stacey Ash, Maureen Ashe, Marta Bailey, Mark Beadle, Anna Beard, Jody Berringer, Christine Bezruki, Matt Bondy, Linda Brogden, Alison Boyd, Kristin Brown, Kirsty Budd, Louise Buhlman, Bob Burtt, Kristopher Cates-Bristol, Ryan Chen-Wing, Dana Ciak, Janice Cooke, Tobi Day-Hamilton, Jude Doble, Eva Dodsworth, Ian Dunlop, Katie Eley, Livia Fama, Victoria Faraci, Carrie Gabla, Karina Graf, Feridun Hamdullahpur, Jacqueline Hanley, Laureen Harder-Gissing, Ryan King, Sue Horton, Sabrina Hutchison, Natasha Jennings, Renishaki Kamalanathan, Sarah Klassen, Rose Koebel, Terry Labach, Mark Lisetto-Smith, Michelle Madden, Kerry Mahoney, Gillian Martin, Jacqueline Martinz, Hope McCallum, Sheila McConnell, Rebecca McElrea, Sharon McFarlane, Kayla McKinnon, Paul McKone, Ainsley Munro, Olaf Naese, Scott O'Neill, Emily Huxley Osborne, Gloria Pageau, Angela Pause, Wendy Philpott, Dave Pink, Judene Pretti, Lenore Ramirez, Andrea Rose Santi, Katie Schafer, Anaia Shaw, Taylor Small, Andrew Smith, Gail Spencer, Heather Steinmetz, Kate Surtees, Jodi Szimanski, Mat Thijssen, Brent Thornhill, Shannon Tigert, Lisa Tomalty, Sam Toman, Carol Truemner, Misakura Tsukimoto, Kira Vermond, Maris Weiss, Cathy Wessels, Russ Wong, Amy Woroch, and Jenn Zehr.

Keep those cards, letters, and photos coming, folks. See you in 2014!

 

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