THUNDER BAY - A new public school under construction on the south side of the city is expected to cost $10 million more than the original price tag, while renovations at a Westgate High School have been delayed.
The cost to build the new school that is to replace Edgewater Park and Agnew H. Johnston Public Schools was originally $20 million, but problems with the site on the field of Sir Winston Churchill High School on Churchill Drive have pushed costs up to $30 million.
“We did some sampling of the ground where the elementary school is going,” said David Wright, superintendent of business with the Lakehead Public School Board. “It is right on the edge of the Williams bog and it is not good ground to build on. We are putting significant piling into the ground. The foundation work is incredibly expensive.”
Wright added that the site was chosen because it is central to the neighbourhoods the school will be serving.
“There really are no other suitable sites on the south side of the city to accommodate those two school communities,” he said. “It’s not that the site is not suitable to build, it’s just not suitable to build with a traditional foundation.”
The issue was brought to the Ministry of Education and the Lakehead Board was granted additional money to finish the project.
Wright added that the school board is still working with contractors to determine a final completion date. The anticipated completion date is slated for September 2019 and Wright said it should be finalized in the next few weeks.
“We do expect there to be a delay, but we are not sure what the delay will look like in its entirety, we are working with the contractor to come up with the finalized timeline,” he said.
Another major school board project at Westgate High School has also been delayed. The completion of the cafetorium to accommodate additional students from Churchill High School was expected by the end of the first semester, but Wright said students should expect to wait another couple months.
“We had some delays finalizing the design of the structural steel, which has put us back by about a month,” he said. “We expect the cafetorium to be open and functional now by March break.”
“The realities of construction is the materials show up when they show up. The structural steel for the cafetorium is not on site yet. We expect it soon, it will go up pretty quickly and the interior will be finished as quickly as we can.”
A dramatic arts classroom is also tied to the new cafetorium that has a price tag of approximately $7 million. Wright said Westgate has always had a flexible lunch routine and students have been utilizing the old cafeteria as well as eating in the hallways.
“They are accommodating it in the first semester and they will accommodate it in the second semester as long as they need to,” Wright said.
