Construction is already underway on the multi-million dollar Centre for Arts and Culture at MacEwan University, but some changes have been made to the design to cut costs.
In 2014, MacEwan University officials showed off a design with a number of exterior accents – with a budget of $143 million.
However, President David W. Atkinson said many of those design elements – which he called ‘swooshes and curves’ – came in over-budget, and had to be dropped.
“Wow costs money, it really does cost money,” Atkinson said. “The curtain wall itself, the exterior of the building, was $20 million, that’s a lot of wow…so we were able to bring that down by 50 percent.”
Atkinson said a new rendering of the building isn’t available, because it needs to be approved.
After the changes, the building is now slightly under budget.
The building is slated to open in 2017.
