To meet the demand for additional student housing, Vancouver Island University, is bringing a 10-storey hybrid mass-timber student housing complex to it’s Nanaimo Campus.

The complex, a seven-storey timber structure built atop a three-storey concrete podium, will encompass 266 student beds, shared lounges available on each residential floor, student support space, amenity areas, and food services.

Project Essentials

  • LocationNanaimo, BC
  • Architecthcma
  • Size9972.34m2

The Province has committed $87 million in funding towards this project, to help contribute to the targeted 8,000 on-campus student housing beds by 2028 laid out in The Province’s 10-year housing plan.

The building will be constructed on a sloped site, and set on a raft slab at grade that utilizes an unconventional basement retaining wall layout of varying level concrete retaining walls along the east, west and north elevations.

Levels 1 through 4 are formed from in-site reinforcement concrete flat slab construction to accommodate the spans and loading the building programming requires at these levels. Level 4 serves as a transfer slab supporting the upper 6 levels of the student residences. These levels are hybrid construction, formed from a point-supported 5-ply CLT slabs and steel HSS columns, and sized to fit within the internal partitions and maximize the available floor space.

This project will target Step 4 of the B.C. Energy Step Code for greenhouse gas emissions targets, with completion planned for January 2027.

Renders courtesy of hcma.