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March 2006 article.
Future of 94-year-old school in doubt
By Duncan Kinney
Calgary Journal
Photo: Alison Jackson photo collection, Calgary Public Library website.
King Edward school, a hulking old sandstone building, lies in the middle of the community of Richmond, boarded up and unused.
The school, at 1720 30th Ave. S.W., was closed by the Calgary Board of Education, or CBE, in 2001, was leased to the Francophone School Board until 2003, and has since sat vacant. “Fifty thousand dollars is probably a minimum of what it costs us every year to maintain that building,” said Graham White, a spokesperson for the CBE. The school, which opened in 1912, requires a massive overhaul to be usable.
Heather McLachlan, a spokesperson with Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation, confirmed the presence of asbestos in the building, citing a review done in 2001, when it was estimated that the cost of removing the known carcinogen would be approximately $200,000. White said: “It’s a very old building and requires upgrades in just about everything: electrical, plumbing, we have the original boiler. There is an extensive amount of renovations needed; it would be in the millions certainly.”
The CBE requested that the building be put up for sale. According to McLachlan, that request is currently under review by Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation, whose guidelines must be adhered to.
Richmond–area residents are concerned about the future of the building.
“I don’t want them to put a big condo there,” said Carole Poirier, who lives in the community and whose children went to King Edward.
Jerome Brenner, another parent whose children went to King Edward, also expressed concern about letting the school sit unoccupied.
“That’s a waste of our funds and we don’t have enough core funding for our schools as it is,” Brenner said. “They’re spending $50,000 a year and not doing anything with it.” Ami Wearmouth, another local resident, said the decrepit building is shameful. “It seems a waste to just let it sit there,” Wearmouth said.
As for reopening the school, that’s not really an option, according to White.
“There will never be the demographics to open that school again,” White said. “There is probably something in the area of 30 school-age students in that community and the capacity of King Edward is about 500 kids, so it’s just not viable.”
However the option of selling and then developing it into condominiums is not off the table. “If Alberta Infrastructure comes back to us and says that they can’t find any further use for the site, that’s one of the options we’d look at but we’re not going to put any resources into that until we know what the status of the building is,” White said.
Darryl Cariou, senior heritage planner of the city planning department, said the school is included on the province's (sic - I think that should be 'municipal' - newsposter) inventory of potential heritage sites. “It’s been substantiated that it has some significant heritage value,” Cariou said. Cariou added that the building is not officially protected and that the list is only for prospective heritage sites.
“One of the worst situations a historic building can be in is sitting vacant,” Cariou said. “Vacant heritage buildings are much more susceptible to fires than those that have active uses. “There are examples all over North America of school buildings that have been converted to other uses. With a creative approach I would be optimistic that there would be a use for that building.” One idea suggested at a community meetings was that before the school’s closure, they could use the school as a historical teaching resource. However, White said the CBE has no plans to do so.
- The Calgary Journal is published by students in the journalism program at Mt. Royal College and serves southwest Calgary communities and businesses. www.calgaryjournal.ca
- See also the Calgary Public Library's virtual tour of historic Calgary for more images from the Alison Jackson collection http://calgarypubliclibrary.com/calgary ... /tours.htm
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