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New roof for Hunting Hills top priority for Red Deer Public Schools

Jan 10, 2019 | 3:46 PM

A new roof and modernization of Hunting Hills High School has now been identified as the number one capital priority for Red Deer Public Schools.

During Wednesday’s regular meeting, Board of Trustees approved the resubmission of the District’s Three Year Capital Plan which also includes several other capital needs.

Superintendent Stu Henry says concerns with the school’s roof leaking over the last few years led them to investigate the issue through a recent scoping project.

“When they came back with the estimates, they believe it will be in the neighbourhood of $7 million to replace all the roofing and some of the other systems that are up underneath the roof,” he explains. “Being that that’s one of our heaviest utilized buildings at 98 per cent utilization rate, we really felt that that has to be our top priority right now, so we’ve resubmitted our Capital Plan to put Hunting Hills as our top priority.”

A previously approved version of the Three Year Capital Plan had the Hunting Hills modernization at number seven on the list but the scoping project by Group 2 Architecture and Interior Design, along with Williams Engineering suggested a full roof replacement, resulting in the project moving up the list.

Elsewhere, a new Grade 6-8 middle school in northeast Red Deer to accommodate 600 spaces has been identified as the number two capital priority for the District, with the modernization of Gateway Christian School to include architectural, mechanical, electrical and functional upgrades and the modernization of Eastview Middle School to include similar enhancements to remain on the list as well.

A full mechanical and electrical modernization of Fairview Elementary School is also on the District’s capital priority list, as well as a new Grade 9-12 high school in north Red Deer to accommodate 1,000 spaces and the modernization of Glendale School for CTS, mechanical and functional upgrades.

Henry says it’s important to note however, this is a wish list, with none of the projects approved for funding at this point.

“This is just our submission to Capital Planning and so it’s up to them as to when we might see any money or funds for this,” says Henry. “At this point, it’s not a go. Once it’s done, we would hope to try to get as much of that project done over the summer when the students are not in to minimize disruption.”

Original estimates anticipated the project to be completed over three summers at a cost of $3 million.

However, last fall’s scoping project determined the full roof replacement required about $7 million and to be completed over five summers.