The University of Waikato has announced it plans to spend an extra $15 million to produce a Tauranga CBD campus of the highest possible standard. The university is leading the campus development project on behalf of the Bay of Plenty Tertiary Education Partnership.
The campus will provide targeted undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, along with applied research which will create solutions for regional issues.
The campus will be built on Durham St and is scheduled to open by 2020. The university Council has approved additional funding of $15 million, on top of the already-promised $10 million for the project. The campus has $30 million of community funding from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust, and will sit on land donated by Tauranga City Council.
Estimates show an 8600 sq m building with the quality needed for a modern tertiary environment will cost about $55 million rather than the $40 million predicted some years ago.