Construction of the new Skwo:wech Elementary School may be facing some COVID-related slowdowns – but, so far, it’s still expected to open on schedule.
Dave Crowe, the New Westminster school district’s director of facilities, updated trustees about the project during the school board’s Sept. 14 operations committee meeting.
The replacement building for the school formerly known as Richard McBride Elementary is taking shape on the Richmond Street site, and Crowe said the project is still going “very, very well.”
“We were able to do a huge amount of work over the summer and took advantage of the fact the school was not occupied,” he said.
Crowe said the project team was able to complete many of the civil works necessary for the new school to help keep the project moving. Now the team is working to complete the exterior; windows and building envelope work are expected to be finished by mid-October.
“We are starting to hear and experience, at this point, minor scheduling delays due to COVID,” Crowe warned.
The work remaining – completion of painting, moulding, windows, interior finishes and the like – has hit the stage where the project is more likely to run into supply-chain snags.
Crowe said the project team has been alerted to “three or four different product lines” that could be delayed due to COVID, and it’s looking for alternative products or different vendors and manufacturers to get around the problem.
He told trustees the district should know within the next four weeks or so whether those snags will lead to any delays. At this point, he said, the project is benefiting from having been slightly ahead of schedule.
“What’s happening right now is we’re starting to use up a little bit of that buffer that we had, but at this point it hasn’t impacted our end dates,” he said.
The school is still expected to be ready for occupancy by mid-December this year, with students moving in for January 2022.
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