What will the new New Westminster Secondary School look like? It’s something many New West residents want to know, but until funding is approved, superintendent Pat Duncan says residents will just have to wait.
While the district has an idea of what the proposed school could look like (a three-storey building), officials can’t make specific details of the plan public until after provincial approval, Duncan told the Record.
“What I can say is that when we build the new school, we will be only disturbing the present building, as it stands, very minimally,” he said.
The vision the district has for the new high school will require moving the city skate park, Duncan added.
“We will be consulting and going out and talking to people, but will it be. ‘Let’s just build whatever we like?’ No. The ministry has clear standards and expectations about square footage and how big certain classrooms can be. It all has to fit within their parameters,” he said.
Once the province gives the district the go-ahead, staff will begin the design-build process, and first up will be a request for proposals. The project definition report submitted to the province outlines three options, which deal mainly with the Massey Theatre – option 1: demolish Massey Theatre; option 2: city retains Massey Theatre; and option 3: repairing the theatre.
If the board decides to move forward with option 2, it won’t lower the cost of the high school replacement project, according to Duncan. The district will still be on the hook for the costs of separating the theatre from the rest of the school.
“The money that would have gone into a demolition of the building would now go into, instead, what would now be a separation,” Duncan explained.
When asked how long it would take the district to get started on the high school once it’s approved, Duncan said shovels could be in the ground anywhere between three to six months, and prep work could begin right away.
“Because we’re not tearing down the school as the students are in there, we’re building around the school, we’re building around the students, there should be minimal disruption as the plan stands now,” he said.
Of course, things could change, depending on what the province approves, he added.
“We want to build the very best secondary school in the province of British Columbia, with LEED standards,” Duncan said. “This will hopefully be the greenest project that is in the province, and (will) certainly meet the needs of our students. It’ll look a lot different than what the present building looks like.”
