Picture yourself walking around campus, heading to class and then going back to your dorm.
All in Parry Sound.
If Canadore College and the Regional Economic Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) get their way, a satellite Canadore College campus could be on the way to the area.
Barbara Taylor, president and chief executive officer of Canadore College, said a West Parry Sound campus is one of the college's top priorities.
"We think it will cost us just under $6 million to do what we need to," she said.
The school hopes to rely on both federal and provincial funding, which could be rolled out as early as the next couple of months. "I don't know whether we will get funding or not. But we are certainly making (our desires for funding) well known (to both Muskoka-Parry Sound MP Tony Clement and MPP Norm Miller)."
If all goes as planned, Taylor said they are looking to expand to a 15,000-square-foot facility, as their numbers triple and are looking for more of a street-level presence.
Currently, the school shares space in the Gerald Mike Taylor building with Contact North in a space measuring about 3,700 square feet.
Programs on the proposed campus will be focused on trades training.
"We really recognized the shortage of skilled trades in the West Parry Sound area," said Taylor.
The shortage of nurses and other health care professionals and trying to expand their programming ... Also in areas like culinary and hospitality," said Taylor, who said the college will continue partnerships with the West Parry Sound Health Centre and Parry Sound High School.
This is a project that REDAC strongly supports, said Kristin LeDrew, who heads the economic development committee that is funded jointly by the Town of Parry Sound, and McDougall and Seguin Townships.
"We feel that's a very strong thing that's going to push forward development in the Parry Sound community because there are a lack of tradespeople, especially in the off-season," she said.
Furthermore, companies will no longer have to send people away for training courses.
"If we can train people in the community, that makes the training more accessible," said Taylor.
"I look at the students in our current program due to graduate, and I've asked them, ?how many of you would have been able to take this program if you had to leave the community?'"
Most of them said they wouldn't.
"People who graduate here are much more likely to stay here," she said.
LeDrew said Canadore had already investigated the former St. Joseph's Hospital as a potential site for the campus, but that idea has since been abandoned, since the ideal, long-term situation for the college is to build, not rent.