McMaster turns down $2m gift of downtown property

According to The Hamilton Spectator, McMaster University has turned down a $2-million gift of downtown land for its planned family health centre, saying the plot isn’t big enough.

Developer Brian Otis, vice-president of the Toronto-based Otis Group, says he recently offered to give Mac almost 40,000 square feet of open land in downtown Hamilton. After a few meetings, he was told the university was looking at other options.

Otis says he offered the university about half of a piece of land currently being used as a parking lot. His group planned to develop the other half for an adjoining commercial-retail project that would share hundreds of underground parking spots with the medical centre.

Mac’s dean of health sciences says it was hard walking away from the generous offer, but that the school decided the project needed more room to grow.

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