Laurentian University (LU) has sold the Vale Living with Lakes Centre in Sudbury to the province as part of real estate deals that are to fund payouts to its creditors.
This is following LU’s 2021-2022 journey in creditor protection under the auspices of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), a situation unprecedented in the post-secondary sector and now banned under federal law.
The university’s president, Lynn Wells, made the announcement Jan. 28 in an internal memo sent to Laurentian community members. Sudbury.com was provided the memo.
“The sale of real estate assets to the Province of Ontario has seen significant progress as Laurentian has sold the Vale Living with Lakes Centre to the province,” said Wells, in the memo. “This is a critical and necessary step in implementing the Plan of Arrangement negotiated with creditors and in exiting CCAA later this year.
“An agreement to lease the property back from the province has also been finalized. This will allow Laurentian to maintain university activities and continue to benefit from the use of the facilities.”
The memo did not state for how much the Living with Lake Centre had sold, or if creditors would immediately see any money from the sale.
However, Laurentian’s 2023-2024 audited financial statements, which were released in October, said LU planned to sell the Living with Lakes building for proceeds of $8 million, and also said the sale of the building was expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
“Laurentian has established a solid working relationship with Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities to complete the sale of additional properties,” Wells added, in the Jan. 28 memo.
“All parties are committed to continuing to work collaboratively to ensure that these occur in a timely manner, ahead of the November 2025 deadline.”
The Vale Living with Lakes Centre is notable as the home of Laurentian's Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit, a team of scientists undertaking research into northern aquatic ecosystems.
In particular, researchers with this unit have been responsible for globally recognized work studying the acidification of Sudbury's lakes due to decades of mining, and their work helped lay the foundation for remediation efforts the city has undertaken starting in the 1970s.
Completed in 2011 at a cost of $21 million, the building design has been praised for its approach to environmental sustainability, using locally sourced materials in its construction, including limestone and pine siding from Manitoulin Island, and jack pine from Chapleau used in its framing.
Some of the researchers housed in the building lost their positions during the CCAA process.
Under its plan of arrangement, the deadline for Laurentian creditors to be paid is the third anniversary of its exit from insolvency, so on Nov. 28, 2025.
Aside from secured creditors and those owed vacation pay, who were already compensated in 2022, most creditors are still waiting for their money.
Among Laurentian’s creditors are former employees of the university terminated as part of the CCAA proceedings.
Creditors will only receive a small percentage of what they were originally owed, or between 14 and 24 per cent.
Sudbury.com attempted to get some answers from the province last fall as to when these real estate deals would be completed so that Laurentian can finally fulfill the terms of its plan of arrangement, to no avail.
Laurentian’s 2022 post-insolvency plan of arrangement states that a pool of cash of up to $53.5-million for creditors is to come from the sale of university real estate to the province of Ontario, which will be rented, in some cases, back to LU.
The minimum floor for the pool of cash has been set at $45.5 million. If Laurentian doesn’t fund the creditors’ distribution pool to at least that amount by Nov. 28, 2025, the university will have defaulted (although they have the option to apply for a one-year reprieve).
According to the 2023 term sheet, property sales were to include seven university parcels of land and five buildings, which, besides the Living with Lakes building, also includes the East Residence, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine building, the Health Sciences building and the Security and Maintenance building.
The university’s greenspace is not included in the transactions.
The total land identified in the term sheet covers 68.75 acres, which represents approximately nine per cent of the university’s total 750+ acres.
Laurentian’s president’s home was also sold in 2024 for $925,000, and proceeds from that sale will also go to its creditors.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
