It was a bittersweet day for staff and students at Paul Kane last week as they watched their old home start tumbling to the ground.
Construction crews started smashing the walls and ceilings of the old Paul Kane building April 19. The building has been closed since Dec. 16, 2022, having been replaced by the new Paul Kane building adjacent to it as of Jan. 9, 2023.
Crews started work on the demolition last February by removing interior furnishings and hazardous materials from the old building, Alberta Infrastructure spokesperson Benji Smith said in an email. Residents should expect to see excavators, dump trucks, and up to 30 workers at a time on site for the next several months as crews complete the demolition.
Smith said crews would limit demolition noise to the hours set out in St. Albert’s bylaws and would use various strategies, such as knocking the building down slowly, to limit dust. The building will be demolished from its front/south side to its back/north.
“The safety of workers, community members, students, and school staff is our focus throughout the project work,” Smith said.
(Relatively) quiet end
An excavator had chewed through the old building’s drama room and front lobby when the Gazette visited the site on April 20. Surrounding it were mounds of twisted metal, shattered brick, and old plastic televisions.
The work was quiet enough that it was completely inaudible inside the lobby of the new Paul Kane, with many students unaware that it was going on.
Paul Kane Grade 11 student Abdirahman Ali said he noticed this phase of the demolition had started when he was picking up his siblings from school on April 19.
“I specifically saw them tearing down the old computer lab,” he said — a place that held a lot of good memories for him.
“We played games during lunch, threw paper airplanes...we started a fantasy league in there.”
Teacher Angela Lockhart said she knew this stage of the demolition was imminent when she saw crews removing glass from the windows of the old building in early April. She and other school members took many pictures of the demolition work as it began Wednesday. Some staffers managed to score souvenir bricks.
“It’s bittersweet,” Lockhart said of the demolition, as while the new Paul Kane was beautiful, the old one carried a lot of memories.
Grade 12 student Colin Smith said it felt a bit weird being in the new building after spending two-thirds of his high-school career in the old one. He recalled a lot of time playing basketball and hanging out with his friends there.
“You spend two years there, and it’s just gone.”
Smith said crews should be finished demolition work by June, after which they will grade and pave the site. Crews plan to build a parking lot and sports fields on the old school site.
While it will be a bit weird to see Cunningham Road instead of the back of the old building once the demolition is done, Lockhart said it will be great for students to have sports fields and additional parking in its place.
“It will be weird to drive down Cunningham and not see the building there,” she said.
Visit www.spschools.org/whats_new/paul_kane_redevelopment for details on the demolition.
