Ryerson University president Sheldon Levy at Ryerson's fall convocation in 2007. Levy took over as Ryerson president in 2005, after serving as president of Sheridan College and executive roles at York University, University of Toronto and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. (Marketwire Photo/Ryerson University)

Ryerson University president Sheldon Levy has been dreaming lately of turning downtown Toronto near his school's campus into what he calls a "digital hub," a meeting place of high-tech retail outlets where the best minds in industry and academia can be inspired and work together, whether its on telecommunications, video games or the next generation of internet applications. And he is not, he says, dreaming in technicolour.

The university president said the first step in his vision happened earlier this year when Ryerson bought Sam the Record Man's iconic former location at the corner of Yonge and Gould streets, and also purchased a former Future Shop retail outlet adjacent to Sam's. Though the university said the plan is to use the former record store to expand the university's library out onto Yonge Street, the plan is for the lower level to be rented as retail space to help cover a mortgage of $10 million.

And it's here where the university president said the plan will begin. Levy spoke with CBC News about his vision and what it might mean for Toronto.

CBC: Can you describe what you have in mind for the stretch of Yonge Street from Gould Street to Gerrard Street.?

Boxing Day shoppers wait to enter Sam the Record Man in 2001. Ryerson University purchased the building that housed the iconic record store, its first step in transforming one of the city's busiest intersections. (Aaron Harris/Canadian Press)

Levy: Right at the moment you have the Sam the Record Man building at one end of the street and another nondescript building on the same side up at Gerrard. My vision is for both sides of the Yonge Street strip to become the most exciting digital retail location in Canada. Twenty-three million people already pass that location a year and now imagine if we had the Apple store located there, similar to New York, and we had Canadian retail there as well, taking a leadership role, and then, above these stores, the universities coming together with the talent that will not only drive those industries but attract industry.

Think, for example, about who is going to develop the iTunes equivalent of banking around the world and just imagine if the talent that did that was identified along that strip, while below the strip is the humming, exciting retail end of the industry. Toronto could not only have the reputation for retail but also for the exciting imagination of the young people to drive the industry into the future.

CBC: You own the Sam's building now and the one next to it. Does Ryerson or one of the other schools have any plans to expand further?

Levy: The only ones we own are those two buildings. And what we're trying to encourage people [to do] is to have a much more aggressive vision of what Toronto can become. The strip from Gerrard to Gould is, well, let me put it this way — Toronto has deserved a heck of a lot better there ever since I've been a 12-year-old. And unless we as a city can have the courage to look to the future of what it can become, it will be the same strip for my grandchildren when they are 12 years old.

I'm just trying to help develop that block. The Sam's site is intended to be a student learning centre but I can see the opportunity of building a digital media presence right in there as part of the student learning centre. I think that's a small beginning of the potential of that area and I'm trying to promote it as such.

CBC: Where did this idea come from? Have you had a chance to share the vision with some of the big technology companies themselves, like Apple, Google?

Levy: The province quite correctly has identified digital media as one of the key industries under which, at the moment, Toronto is a leader in and can stay a leader in. And it's also one of the most prosperous industries going forward. And so Ryerson has been working with a few other universities at looking at our strengths and talking about pulling them together in a way that can both support the industry generally but can create the kind of graduate and undergraduate programs that create the talent.

But what we are working on is industry driven. We haven't spoken with Apple or Google but we have with some of the major and medium-sized companies in Toronto. I have to say a lot of what I'm talking about came out of those discussions. The companies said you know if you built a widget and it came from the lab bench and became a product that is interesting, but that's not the issue. The issue is what we need desperately is talent that is interdisciplinary in nature, not only engineers and the designers but also those who know the legal issues. What we need are problem solvers and talent, so the question becomes how do we get them into one place.

CBC: Given the way the internet allows people in industry, and in particular digital media, to connect remotely, why try to create a physical hub as opposed to a virtual one? Do you think it makes a difference having a physical centre of things?

Levy: Absolutely. What I've seen whether I was at Sheridan watching the animation program develop or in the United States is that it's an industry where the new ideas — similar to mathematics — come from youth. And the youth want to be in an exciting area. And the work they do, well this isn't a solo journey of youth, it happens when they get together and share ideas, and out of that comes the spontaneity of creativity. Anyone who thinks that you could develop these industries to be leadership industries in the garage of the old Apple days is mistaken.

CBC: Two weeks ago your university also announced the start up of an angel investment network to help students build that transition between being a student at Ryerson and working in the business world. Is this connected to your vision?

Levy: The angel investor network is going to be run by non-institutional money with an ambition to help young people take their ideas and get it to the point where they have a prototype, which they can then go to the traditional angel network to help them get a kick-start. But it's also part of the education of students that allows them to understand what the challenges are and how you could take your education and move it to an entrepreneurial basis. If you came to Ryerson and looked at the students at Ryerson, it is a very diverse group of students, but it’s overwhelming that they don't want to work for government or General Motors. There's an entrepreneurial spirit here and so the idea is to simply try and create the opportunities for youth to be able to experiment in a safe place. This is a bet, if you like, to help young people to take their energies and see if the outcomes can turn into a creative business, either for profit and not-for-profit.

It's all connected to a sense of energy and excitement about the future and how the downtown core could be the most important incubator for youth in the digital area. It's nurturing ideas so that the job opportunities people see are different from those people saw in the 1960s, when people said 'I've got to go work for General Motors or the government.'

CBC: What needs to happen to take this from an idea to something that can be a reality?

Levy: If I and the heads of other institutions don't drive it forward, then just talking about it isn't going to have people running to the door to say you've got the best idea in the world. We take it upon ourselves to essentially prove the point. When I talk to the local councillor, the local MPP about this, there is overwhelming support for it conceptually but the thing I keep on hearing is why don't you make it happen, why don't you take the first step, and that's what we're doing. It's not going to happen unless it happens incrementally, and ultimately I think we have to take a lead in this. We have to move it from words to reality.