After months of delays and a $5-million jump in costs, construction is about to begin on a middle school in Anmore.
The news, announced Tuesday by School District 43's secretary treasurer, Rick Humphreys, prompted board of education chair Melissa Hyndes to do what she called a "happy dance" but not before the board made several changes to funding for other projects to increase the construction budget for the school.
Cash from construction and renovation projects that ran under budget or haven't broken ground yet were shifted to plump up the Anmore project. It will now cost $33 million to build the school for 500 students that has a projected opening date of September 2015.
Most of the additional costs come from the need to truck out 96,000 cu. ft. of fill to create a stable foundation for the LEED Gold-rated school, which will be built behind Heritage Woods secondary against a hill on the Port Moody/Anmore border.
Delays were caused by difficulties in siting the school - its location was moved three times - and negotiating agreements to provide fire and sewage hook-ups with Port Moody when the building is located in Anmore.
The school will be be terraced, with a gym on the bottom floor and the exploratory and academic programs on the second and first floors.
Architects B+H BuntingCoady Architects Inc. won the Canadian Architect Award of Excellence 2011 for the design and the builder will be Envoy Construction Services.
As a designated Neighbourhood Learning Centre, the new middle school will house a day care and program space. But a lot of pre-construction work will have to be done.
Much of the hill behind Heritage Woods secondary will have to be removed to make way for the structure, which will require a lot of trucks carrying dirt. Principal of facilities initiatives Ivano Cecchini said homeowners in the neighbourhood have been notified.
The school fronts on a small rural neighborhood in Anmore off of Humming Bird Drive and Dogwood Drive.
It will be a beautiful building, once completed, with lots of glass and an open but covered atrium. However, cost constraints owing to technical difficulties at the site means the building will not have a green roof as originally proposed.
