LANIGAN — The Horizon School Division is moving into the design phase for the future K-12 school in Lanigan, which will consolidate both the elementary and high school.
“It’s a very exciting time,” said Kevin Garinger, Horizon School Division’s director of education. “Within a year we’ll be moving to begin the actual construction, so lots of work ahead of us to prepare for that, but we’re looking forward to it.”
Garinger said that they’re planning for the facility to be two levels.
“What that’s going to look like, we don’t know yet – but we anticipate we’ll be looking at two gymnasiums,” he said.
“We’ve been looking at schools of similar size and capacity, just schools being built for 400-450 students. So it will be similar in size and that sort of thing as Rosthern Community School or Hudson Bay Community School.”
The high school that’s currently being used in Lanigan was built in 1956, while the elementary was built in 1965. Currently, the high school has no HVAC system for air exchanges.
Garinger said the new facility will contain all these amenities.
“It will have to have all the requirements that are necessary and are part of the expectations of any sort of new construction that way, especially school construction.”
There isn’t expected to be any downtime between shifting the students to the new facility, with the older schools remaining in use until the new facility is operational.
Afterwards, Garinger said the older facilities will be demolished.
The architectural firm chosen to work on the school is Group2. Some of the firm’s previous projects include a K-9 school in Meadow Ridge, Alberta, and the “Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan” facility in Saskatoon.
A new school for Lanigan was first announced July 23, with the province investing $21 million into the project.
“This build is certainly, as you can tell, long overdue,” Garinger said. “So we’re excited the government and board has supported us in that.”
