Q&A: What would a Centre Square Mall campus be like?

Centre Square Mall’s new owner has spent months trying to convince the NWT government to turn the mall into Aurora College’s Yellowknife campus.

For years, the GNWT and college had been pursuing a vision of a facility costing hundreds of millions of dollars on Tin Can Hill.

That plan appears to have been scrapped. Instead, Nunastar – which owns Yellowknife’s Explorer Hotel and acquired the lower Centre Square Mall this year – says the mall is the perfect solution.

That proposal made headlines this month when the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce called for it to be given the green light.

How would it work? What would it cost, what would a campus in the mall look like, and how close is it to actually happening?

We asked Ed Romanowski, president of Nunastar, earlier this week. Here’s a Q&A about the proposal.

The mall? Really?

Centre Square Mall has had a bad reputation. For years, both levels of the mall were known for problems with security, vacant units and the sense its owners had forgotten it.

Over the past couple of years, that has gradually changed. New businesses and restaurants have opened, the mall is busier than it used to be, and the lower half has a new owner – Nunastar – with a track record in the North.

Even the mall’s harshest critics would have to concede parts are nicer than they were. However, it’s still a long way from being a sparkling gem of higher education.

There’s one other important note: only Nunastar is part of this plan. The upper mall (containing Ricky’s, Auroville and other businesses) is owned by a completely separate entity based in the south and, according to Romanowski, is not involved.

And this is Nunastar’s plan?

Nunastar and the college sound like they’ve been working together on this proposal, which they need the GNWT to back before it can advance.

(Aurora College’s board chair, Kenny Ruptash, is away this week and wasn’t reachable for comment.)

“We submitted a proposal about a year ago to the college to provide the campus within the shopping mall area and some of the floors within the office tower,” said Romanowski.

“Given our experience in the North, we could build the campus on time, on budget, and this is effectively a public-private partnership where interests are aligned.

“We want to make sure we have a well-educated population available to us in the North, educated in the North, so we can keep the youth in the North as well. But keep in mind a lot of it is adult education, and it’s a much-needed facility in Yellowknife.”

How much would this cost?

Nunastar thinks this is a big selling point.

The Tin Can Hill plan was projected to cost at least $400 million, if not more. At no point did the GNWT have any spare money to assign to it or any federal promise of support.

Romanowski says opening a campus in the mall requires $24 million in improvement work, and he says Nunastar is prepared to cover half of that. Then Aurora College would need between $6 million and $9 million to cover the cost of moving out of Northern United Place.

And NUP is what, a few blocks away? Why even bother?

The college and its students have had complaints about their current building over the years. 

Moreover, a refreshed Yellowknife campus is central to the idea launched by the GNWT in 2018 of turning the college into a polytechnic university.

Why so cheap compared to Tin Can Hill?

Because you’re not building a whole new facility or even many support services, since most of them are already right there – restaurants, banks and so on.

“Almost every university has a downtown campus now. The big advantage is you have all the services, instead of having to build another city within a city,” said Romanowski. 

“You don’t have to build the building over again. Four walls, a roof, the main infrastructure is already there.”

Additionally, Nunastar thinks federal funding can be found to cover some of the costs set out above.

I am finding it hard to imagine this.

OK. Separate out the upper mall because it’s not part of this picture. Then block off the lower mall to the public apart from a walkway to the main elevator so existing tenants can get to the office tower.

Then turn all the retail space into classrooms, make the city library a university library too, stick a daycare at one of the entrances, and keep the Tim Hortons where it is because some things are apparently sacred.

“There won’t be a public mall any more. All the common area spaces, things like that, everything becomes the campus,” said Romanowski.

“Phase one” of the plan, as he calls it, would give the college 42,000 square feet to work with. He says the plan has been drawn up in consultation with the college to make sure it’s workable.

That space would hold 700 to 1,000 students, Romanowski said. 

(We asked for visualizations of how the campus would look but were told none are available yet. We expect to get some soon.)

What if the college wants to expand?

Nunastar says it can get to 70,000 square feet in a future phase if need be, with a cap of about 2,000 students – a number Romanowski isn’t sure the college, even as a polytechnic university, would ever reach.

“There is room to grow and there’s a lot of land adjacent to it as well,” he said.

OK, so now what? Is this actually going to happen?

As keen as Nunastar is, the college and the GNWT – which did not ask for this proposal – must agree.

This week, the NWT’s Department of Education, Culture and Employment issued a statement that struggled to match Romanowski’s enthusiastic tone.

Noting the college makes the call on “operational decisions,” the department said it was working to “support well-informed, fiscally responsible decisions that align with the college’s transformation into a polytechnic university.”

“This work includes helping to assess any unsolicited infrastructure proposals that may be brought forward by third parties, including the one brought forward by Nunastar,” the department added.

“At this time, there is no specific timeline for a decision. Any proposal would need to undergo appropriate due diligence in collaboration with Aurora College before any determination is made.”

Romanowski sees things slightly differently and thinks a decision will come “over the next few months.”

In his view, there is popular support for it to go ahead.

“The Indigenous groups are behind us. The city is clearly behind it as well. It’s a big part of the evolution of downtown and would be a main centre point or key public space for downtown revitalization,” Romanowski said.

“You’re starting to see a groundswell of community support such as the chamber coming forward to push that decision to be made, because this has been a long time coming.”

Correction: December 19, 2025 – 12:42 MT. This article initially referred to Kenny Ruptash as Aurora College’s president. He isn’t, he chairs the board of governors.