University of Windsor referendum results are in

The University of Windsor's athletic director says the school won't be getting a new athletic facility without having all three student groups on board to fund the project.

"Each one of the student governments is a distinct entity, in order to make the project as presented work, we'd have to win all three," Mike Havey explained in an interview with CBC News.

"I don't believe it will ever happen without student support," Havey said. "If you look at the other institutions that have done this [expansion] — the University of Western Ontario, Guelph, McMaster, Queen's — the students made a contribution."

• $73M University of Windsor athletics facility put to a vote

Students spent two days voting on whether they should help pay for a $73-million addition to the campus sports facilities this week. Thursday, unofficial results showed two student groups voted in favour while one did not.

Slightly more than 52 per cent of undergraduates who voted did so in favour of a new fee to help fund the addition to the campus athletics centre, and yeas narrowly edged the nays 98-95 among part-time students who voted.

But more than 54 per cent of grad students who voted rejected the idea.

It's not clear what the university's next step is, though the number of yes votes shows the 'appetite' is there for a new facility, Havey said. But the project needs student support of all three student groups to get out of the gate.

"We spent two years getting to this point," Havey said. "I don't have a strategy at the tips of my fingers, nor does anyone else I believe, to move this forward."

The results are 'unofficial' until they're presented to the University of Windsor Student Alliance board next week, April Adams, the school's returning officer said. .

Iftekhar Basith is president of the Graduates Students Society at the University of Windsor. He represents 2,500 grad students. He previously outlined some of his concerns with the proposal, saying the cost was too high for students.

If it had passed, the students would have had to pay an annual fee, initially $125, with that figure rising five per cent per year for eight years. Eventually, it will be $176 per year for 22 years.

The fee would not be charged until the new facilities are complete, which is 2019 at the earliest.