Students and staff at Langley Secondary will have to endure more construction until their new school is finally completed in 2020.
When the community balked at the suggestion of tearing down the 1947 school, the Langley School District created a plan that would keep the usable parts of the existing building, upgrade them for seismic safety and add new areas.
Right now the action is taking place in the rear of the school grounds so little is visible to those driving past.
“You really won’t see the front of the school until the two storey comes down,” explained project manager Karen Wagner, with the school district.
The in the front of the school, known as the castle lobby, will be torn down once the new sections are done and the staff and students moved in. She said it’s not yet decided what will become of the space currently occupied by the two storey front section.
“It’s not 100 per cent designed yet,” she said.
The new two-storey section is under construction. It will be finished by next spring.
“You really won’t see the front of the school until the two storey comes down,” Wagner said.
The Langley Education Centre, which is located beside LSS, will move into the new part of the high school temporarily while work is done on the LEC building.
By September 2019, LSS students will be in the new addition.
“Ninety-five per cent of the new addition will be built,” she said.
The school has a larger dance studio, gender neutral washrooms, more seating areas, more flexible classroom layout, and LED lighting in the gym and classrooms.
“We moved the shops and the new two-storey is basically sitting where a shop wing was,” she said.
The drama and art spaces stay the same.
In the end, about half of the old school will be torn down. It was built for 1,025 students but the school had fewer than 800 when the construction was announced so the overall size of the school will be smaller than the original.
The full scope of the project is not written in stone. Once the seismic is upgraded in existing parts of the school, certain portions are torn down (such as the two storey section facing 56th Avenue) and new additions are done, any remaining funding will be used for such things as building lanes and drop-off areas where the old two-storey section was.
“It’s not 100 per cent designed yet,” she explained.
The project has required six different building permits because it’s marrying old portions with new build.
The upgrade and partial replacement of LSS is a $26.2-million project with the Province contributing $25.8 million, and the district contributing $426,123.
