City wants law school to move to Paul Martin Building

The City of Windsor is going to take control of the Paul Martin Building, as part of a proposal to move the local law school into it.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told CBC News that the federal government will be transferring the Paul Martin Building to the city for $1.

The goal would then be to have the University of Windsor move its law school into the building at 185 Ouellette Ave., with the city transferring the property to the school.

The deal is contingent on the plan being approved by the university's board.

"There's still more work to do and the university has a number of procedures and processes that they need to go through and conversations that need to be had with their board of governors," Dilkens told CBC News in an interview on Tuesday.

"We're very, very hopeful that this will result in a very positive outcome."

The building needs costly renovations for it to be at a standard where the law school would be able to operate.

"The retrofit of that building will cost tens of millions in order to bring that up to a standard where an academic institution could run a law school out of that building, so it's a significant investment," said Dilkens.

"It would be a significant economic generator in terms of creating jobs in the short term during that retrofit of the building, but the long-term impact is really what we're looking at and the benefits that that would have on our downtown core and our city."

Dilkens said that the city is prepared to provide financial support to make this move happen, though declined to provide specifics on this aspect of the plan on Tuesday.

"It's a very generous offer and we're very serious about seeing this happen," he said.

"We think that in terms of the impact it could have on the city and on the downtown, it's very, very positive."

Dilkens said that such a move would allow hundreds of law students to attend all of their courses within the same building. That could then create an incentive for many of them to live in the downtown area, he said.