REGINA - The sod has been turned on a new joint use school to be built in north Regina.
The new school will replace four aging school facilities: St. Peter, St. Michael, McDermid and Imperial elementary schools, all of which were built between 1950 and 1960.
The sod turning took place outside the Imperial Community School on Broad Street, the site chosen for the new school. The province has allocated $65 million to the new school build with the city of Regina providing funding for the community space along with it.
The new facility will to be 11,186 square meters and is expected to be open by fall 2025. Once completed, it will accommodate around 800 students from the Regina Public and the Catholic divisions for prekindergarten to grade 8, with an ability to expand to 1,000. In addition to a community space, there will be a 51-space child care centre.
What is not yet confirmed is what the name will be for the new school going up at the location. Regina Public Schools says it is launching a Name Your School campaign and is seeking suggestions of potential names from their communities. More details will be provided on the Regina Public Schools website and social media channels.
Premier Scott Moe, Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill and City of Regina Mayor Sandra Masters were on hand for the sod turning, as were Regina Board of Education Chairperson Sarah Cummings Truszkowski and Regina Catholic Schools Board Chair Shauna Weninger. Prior to the sod turning, they were joined by a number of students inside the school.
“Over the course of the next number of months and years and a bit, you’re going to see a lot of things change on this site,” Moe told the kids in attendance. “Fences are going to go up and there’s going to be a school built, and you were young enough that you will probably likely are going to have the opportunity to attend that school so I encourage you to watch that progress happen over that period of time.”
This sod turning follows on the previous announcement in June that a site had been selected for the new joint use school in the area. It also follows on a string of other recent announcements about schools that either have been built or are on the way.
In September, a new joint use school in Lakeview, the Argyle and Ecole St. Pius X school, was opened to replace existing schools there. As well, a second joint use school had been announced this year for the Harbour Landing area to accommodate the booming population, and officials are hoping for the sod to be turned and for construction to begin there.
For the new school on the Imperial site it is a long time coming. The school divisions had been planning for over a decade to replace the aging facilities already serving north Regina.
In speaking to reporters at City Hall later that day, Mayor Masters welcomed the start of construction.
“Schools are the centre of our communities, of all of our communities within communities, those areas, those neighbourhoods that I raised my kids in, that if you have kids you raise kids in” said Masters. “Even if you don’t have kids they add life, vitality, future hope to every city and every community. The investment in schools in the city of Regina is profoundly welcome.”
You can no longer count on social media to deliver important news to you. Keep your news a touch away by bookmarking SASKTODAY.ca's homepage at this link.
Subscribe to SASKTODAY.ca newsletter to get our daily news to your inbox.
