See full article here: CC4 bridges today’s employment needs with the skills to help fill B.C.’s labour gaps – Business in Vancouver
Western Community College’s newest facility welcomed students for the first time in Nov. 2025
The numbers and projections alone point to generational opportunities that can set today’s learners up for life.
WorkBC projects close to one million job openings between 2025 and 2035, as B.C.’s population continues to age and retirements rise.
Healthcare, education and tech roles are all in peak demand.
And Western Community College (WCC) is positioned to meet the needs of both employees and employers with the new addition of City Centre 4 (CC4), a state-of-the-art learning space next to Surrey Memorial Hospital.
Having opened its doors in Nov., CC4 features more than 65,000 square feet of dedicated learning space across four levels to combine innovation, applied training and student-centred services.
But what does that translate into for learners?
For starters, modernity.
“Everything is relevant to today, everything is modern and nothing is outdated,” says Pranav Malhotra, WCC’s marketing manager.
This is a campus that creates an environment where students can focus, grow and gain real confidence – where the training spaces of today translate into the job placements of tomorrow.
Malhotra highlights CC4’s contemporary labs and real-world professional environments that give students the most updated, hands-on training available.
Four healthcare labs, including a pharmacy technician lab and a hospitality lab, are housed on the building’s ninth floor. The floor will also accommodate more trade-specific training rooms in the future, including a professional RMT clinic with treatment rooms.
“Students are going to feel like they’re working in an actual RMT office, because on top of all the labs and equipment, it’s also actually going to be open to the public itself,” Malhotra says.
Meanwhile, the level 4 classroom and learning centre features 16 multimedia classrooms and a 200-plus seat auditorium. Labs and libraries, trades-specific training rooms and student lounges round out the centrepiece of CC4.
Level 10 will include learning spaces for those focused on IT, marketing, early childhood education and so much more. And all of it comes with live training, supervised patient-care scenarios and other real-world learning models.
“All of our programs are designed to have practical training at heart,” Malhotra says. “Our instructors have always been focused on creating a structure that allows the students to be job ready. That’s why we are able to boast a 97 per cent placement rate on an average for most of our programs.”
The 11th floor is dedicated to student support services, including an employment and career services department, a registrar office for academic support and so on.
And when grads do go out into the working world, their WCC training can net them not only fulfilling, but lucrative, careers.
To formally commemorate the momentum and potential found at CC4, an inauguration ceremony was held Dec. 5. Guests were treated to First Nations drumming, a guided tour of the facility and various presentations to crystalize the power of CC4’s advanced education advantage.
“We ensure that our graduates are absolutely well trained and ready for their field of choice,” Malhotra says.
For more information on how WCC is setting the standard in private education, go to www.wcc.ca.