The downtown renewal achieved when Concordia University created a downtown campus.

The following was originally published in the Nanaimo Daily News, Aug 20, 2015. Reprinted with permission of the author. Andrew Homzy is a Grammy nominated musician, Professor Emeritus, Concordia University. Andrew is also President of the Nanaimo International Jazz Festival Association.

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Moving Vancouver Island University music and performing arts students to Nanaimo's Vancouver Island Conference Centre could rejuvenate the city's core and would make use of existing space in the conference centre, says Andrew Homzy, a professor emeritus from Concordia University who now resides on Protection Island.

Homzy taught jazz at Concordia in Montreal for 40 years beginning in the late 1970s in Montreal and said both the city and school benefited from moving music and theatre downtown in a pitch to council and VIU officials via email this week.
Homzy said performing arts students went to a separate campus outside of the city, unlike visual arts students, who were located in the downtown campus.

"This was unfortunate for the performing arts students because they were greatly removed from the professional performance venues, work/study opportunities and the vibrant inspiring 'buzz' which makes Montreal such a great city," he said in his email.

"Finally, in 2009, a huge project was completed which united all of the fine arts students in the heart of downtown. .. Within one semester, both the neighbourhood and the students were transformed. And that's what I'd like to see happen here."

An influx of arts students into the downtown core would drive demand for accommodation and services and liven up the area, he said. Repurposing the city owned conference centre has increasingly become a topic of conversation in light of what critics have described as a disappointing performance from the conference centre.

Mayor Bill McKay said he wants to continue the current course and instead seek out business opportunities to bolster the facility's fortunes. McKay and city manager Ted Swabey were in Vancouver Wednesday meeting with representatives of Great Canadian Casinos, who McKay said is looking to expand their facility.

"There are a lot of folks with a lot of ideas for the VICC, none of whom have any backers, and you need to have willing investors to make a project like that come to fruition," McKay said.

"We've talked to VIU about it before, VICC is nowhere in the plans of VIU, in any way, shape or form. "As it stands right now, I'm not prepared at this point to give up on that centre as a conference centre."McKay said a planned expansion of the Port Theatre and the prospect of a new downtown hotel has increased economic potential for the area.

A response from VIU president Ralph Nilson's office was not received by press time.

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