A look at the plot of land at McGill Road and Summit Drive in Kamloops. (Photo via Google Maps)

Thompson Rivers University is planning to build a $120-million facility at the corner of McGill Road and Summit Drive.

Vice-President of Administration and Finance, Matt Milovick, says this new building will be home to TRU’s STEM programming as well as the Bob Gaglardi School of Business and Economics.

Milovick tells RadioNL the two were initially envisioned as separate buildings.

“The one building, the STEM building, had been notionally approved by government for the capital plan. But that notional approval has been revoked, which is okay,” he said. ”

“There are a lot of, I think, challenges in the sector in terms of cost overruns and escalating costs. In our discussions with government, they were certainly amenable to us putting those two projects together as one larger project.”

Milovick says the $120-million price tag could increase further if condos are built on top of this new building.

“I think we can go as high as 14 storeys, I’m not suggesting for a moment that we would go that high, it would really depend on the business case,” Milovick said.

“It’s early days. We’re just taking a preliminary look at what is possible, and we’ll go from there. I mean that’s a pretty nice site, the view lines are extraordinary, and it would a shame to waste the airspace, so we have to spend some more time exploring that piece.”

Milovick says TRU expects to release more details about its plans in the near future, but don’t expect work to get underway any time soon.

“Market conditions aren’t right. It will take a funding commitment from the province to build the academic piece and then we’d bring the market piece along at the same time,” he said, noting TRU will release more details as planning continues.

“I can’t say right now. It’s not for…I would say… I can’t even say, it’s years.”

TRU plans to submit its updated five-year capital plan to the provincial government on July 14.