The South Hill Community Centre is close to being a thing of the past.
Contractors are doing the necessary abatement work on the site on 35th Street before it is demolished.
Deb Comfort, the city’s neighbourhood facilities supervisor, said the building will be taken down and removed before students start classes at École La Prairie in September.
The dilapidated building dates back to the 1940s and 1950s. It is filled with asbestos and other hazardous materials. The city is levelling the building because it would be too expensive to bring it up to current building codes.
Comfort said a lot of the building supplies from that era are no longer acceptable if the particles end up airborne.
“They are currently doing the inside of the building and there are some materials outside of the building,” said Comfort. “That’s why they have to wrap everything in the bubble.”
The onsite air is monitored while the work is being done as part of the contract, said Comfort.
Once the building is down, the city will install a play structure for the kindergarten to Grade 12 school through a partnership with the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region No. 2. The school district is footing the bill for the new play structure.
It is expected to be installed later this month or early September.
On top of this work, the old francophone school, formerly Piper Creek School, will be demolished by the end of this year. Work is expected to get underway next month.
That demolition is part of the plan to add a soccer field behind the new École La Prairie on 4810 34th St., on the old school site.
A hazardous materials abatement process is likely to occur sometime in the fall before that building is demolished.
The soccer field will eventually run east-west from the old school’s parking lot to the escarpment. The field will be lined and rentable.
The city earmarked $215,000 for the South Hill Community Centre demolition project in the 2015 budget.
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com