The demolition of the old Quesnel Junior Secondary School site on Callanan Street in downtown Quesnel is expected to begin next month.

Quesnel School District Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Woollends provided an update at this week’s monthly School Board meeting…

“Demolition will start around mid November. The beginning of the work will be HAZMAT work so it will be in the building to make sure that we’re taking out any hazardous materials that we need to take out, and that will take us through to spring and we will see the demolition of the building starting probably until late spring/early summer.”

Woollends says it will be a green demolition where they will do everything possible to recycle or re-use what they can from the building.

She says they know the exact cost until they award the contract which should be very soon…

‘With the old QJS site we are currently waiting to award the bid to have the sub contractor come in and do the work to do the demolition of the buildings and do the reclamation of the property back to the original state that we had it in, so we’re excited that we’re at that process now. ”

A new middle school will be built at the old Maple Drive Junior Secondary School site that is currently being used on Mountain Ash Road in the Red Bluff area.

The province announced in the summer that it would provide funding of up to 52.2 million dollars to build the new facility.

Construction is expected to begin next summer and it is expected to be ready for up to 550 grade 8 and 9 students by the fall.