The University of Guyana (UG) is scouting buildings for an off-campus centre in downtown Georgetown that will not only sustain itself but will bring additional revenues for the cash-strapped institution.
One of the buildings being looked at for possible rental is the Camp and Lamaha streets edifice, owned by Neal Sukhlal, of Impressions Inc.
“The selected UG downtown building [campus], after our due diligence, is expected to house a number of entities and offices, some of which are projected to be revenue generators,” UG’s Director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives Dr. Fitzgerald Yaw told Stabroek News yesterday.
Yaw informed that the revenue generators for the central Georgetown site will be a conference room that can be rented out to the public for functions, a business and graduate school, named the School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (SEBI), and a business development unit.
UG is also looking to have a building that can also accommodate its Research and Innovative Fund’s Office and planned Philanthropy, Alumni and Civic Engagement (PACE) offices.
Yaw informed that the university will ultimately have to build its own downtown campus but in the meantime it needs to rent, while land and construction matters are worked out.
As a result, he said that the Camp and Lamaha Streets building was being explored for rental, but first a financial viability evaluation will be conducted before the university decides on tenancy. “We have to be very clear about this.
The University of Guyana’s team wants to turn UG around to where it should be as a tertiary institution, similar as those such as UWI, in the Caribbean.
In the mid-1990s, when I worked with Sir Shridath Ramphal at the UWI, it was one of the visions for Guyana to get Guyana to similar standing both physically and academically as the UWI… that didn’t come through so we are now looking to, at minimum, start the process for raising the standards,” Yaw asserted.
“As part of the renaissance, we are looking to have centres in downtown Georgetown. UG does not currently have a real presence downtown because there is the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) offices, but, well, you saw those and know about that. They are in the QC (Queen’s College) compound and well …you know how those look. So, as part of that expansion, we are looking at renting, then we can look at building and so on. Just know that we haven’t signed any agreement with anyone because the first priority is looking at the financial viability,” he added.
Yaw was quick to point out that whatever building is rented has to bring in substantial revenue for the university and it will have to be up to the University Council and Finance and General Purposes Committee to decide on the way forward.
He explained that the idea for having a building that has the capacity to earn from not only classes but rental of space was birthed out of seeing similar cases at North American and European universities.
Pointing to the University of Southern Mississippi as an example, Yaw explained, “Addition-ally in one lease option, where the university does not need all the space, it would rent one or two floors of a multiple level building to a quality tenant, like a bank, international agency or major firm.”
“The picture (photo shown) indicates the possibility for renting appropriate space for events like weddings, which is a model used at other universities.
The example, in this case, is from the University of Southern Mississippi. One of the buildings that the University of Guyana is looking at for its downtown location has penthouse space, appropriate for hosting a range of special events for a fee. The university, in appropriate cases, can also rent space for cellular towers,” he added.
