Construction underway for $30M-plus École Claudette replacement school
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With the foundations already poured, construction for the new school to house Strathcona County’s Francophone students has started.
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École Claudette-et-Denis-Tardiff’s replacement school was funded in 2021 with 13 other schools across the province in the Alberta Government’s Capital Plan. Marc Lebonte, secretary of Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord, said work is underway.
“The school drawings are almost complete, and, in the meantime, with the design build what you can do is start construction of the school prior the school design being 100 per cent complete,” Lebonte said. “They’re currently working on foundations right now and if you pass by the school site, they are putting in services right now. We’re very excited to be moving forward with the school.”
Drawings will be completed in the next few weeks and once they’re finalized, it’s full speed ahead on the school.
The new school will be at Florian Park at 902 Regency Drive, which Lebonte said is an ideal space for the Francophone community.
A big change to the original plans is how the school will be constructed and operated.
“This school was planned to be a P3 school, but that has changed. The government changed the delivery model of the school to a design build and what we had done as a school board and with Alberta Infrastructure is to design the school to 30 to 40 per cent and then it went out to tender and won by Dover Construction,” explained Lebonte.
Lebonte noted that the French school division is unclear why the government decided to change the plans from a P3, but this design build is the preferred route.
“They look at several factors in terms of cost and maintaining the school over the next 30 years and determine from that whether they feel a P3 is the proper model, and in this case, the decision was made to switch to a design build model,” Lebonte said. “Once a P3 is built, it is a third-party contractor maintaining the school over the next 30 years, and with that maintenance contract we’d be limited as a school board and limited on modifications we could do to the school after we move in. This design build model provides us a little more flexibility.”
Lebonte said despite the school being run by the Francophone school board, they don’t have much say in the building process or budget.
“Because this is completely managed by Alberta Infrastructure. They are the ones holding the purse strings for this school. I do know that when they went to tender the school was more expensive than originally budgeted due to inflation in construction, but I don’t have a final budget price,” Lebonte said.
The estimated cost of the school, according to Alberta Infrastructure, is $30.4-million.
Despite the limitations, Lebonte said the new facility will offer a number of new opportunities for students.
“The new school is still going to be a small K-12 school. We are limited, but we did design a full CTS woodshop with three welding bays. There will be a multi-purpose room that will allow students to learn hairdressing, robotics and other things like that. We’re also including a CTS kitchen for foods classes. We were also successful with the Government of Alberta to secure federal funds, which will allow a Francophone daycare and preschool as part of the school,” he said. “There will also be a small space dedicated for theatre practice and performing.”
Lebonte said with the foundation construction underway, the hope is to complete the school before the start of the school year in 2025.
The school is set to serve Strathcona County, Fort Saskatchewan, Lamont, Josephburg, Camrose and Tofield. Estimates expect the new facility will hit capacity by 2029, but there are plans to add two modulars to the site to resolve pressure.
“We currently have 210 students and the design capacity of the new school will be 425,” Lebonte confirmed.
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