Home ec room - gone; shop - gone; classrooms - gone; art room - gone.
A huge portion of the former Humboldt Collegiate Institute (HCI) building, located along Hwy. 5 on the east side of Humboldt, came crashing to the ground last week, as demolition of part of the structure continued.
Though part of the school - the west wing and gym - will be saved to form part of the new Humboldt Public School (HPS), much of the building - additions and renovated portions spanning it's believed to be seven decades - will be torn down.
Demolition, including the removal of hazardous materials like asbestos from the building, has been going on about six weeks now. But last week was the first time the demolition became visible from the outside, as portions of the school along Hwy. 5 were torn down by heavy equipment.
Standing on the roof of the boiler room next to the gym on September 6, just how much of the school will soon be gone became very clear.
Classrooms in one of the oldest portions of the school, and areas like the industrial arts shop, home ec room and art room had already been dismantled by machinery. The library was still left at that point, but would soon be going down, along with more classrooms, the school's staff room, and front office area.
The Sutherland Theatre area of the building had some asbestos removal that needed to be completed, and then it was scheduled to come down this week, noted Marty Yeager, a superintendent with Humboldt Lumber Mart, who took the Journal on a guided tour of the building, including the roof.
A portion of the school surrounding the gym - the boiler room and the change room areas - was also to be torn down, leaving the gym to stand alone for a while.
The demolition process, Yeager said, will take at least another four weeks, as they remove the concrete foundations that still remain, visible now on parts of the building that have been destroyed. They also have to bring the entire site up to grade.
The demolished material also has to be sorted - the metal separate from the concrete and brick, and from the rest of the combustible material.
The landfill here won't take anything but combustible material, Yeager explained.
The south end of the western wing will be the new southern-most part of the new school, he explained, which is a lot further back from the highway than before.
The siding will come off that west wing, and new brick will be put on. Inside, that entire wing will be pulled back to the structure - already, floors and ceilings have been removed, as have some walls - before it's rebuilt as part of the new HPS.
The new school will include a new portion linking the west wing to the gym, a stage built along the wall of the gym where the change rooms once were, and a portion that will link those parts of the old high school with the newer portion of the current HPS building.
The oldest part of the HPS building will be torn down sometime next year.
The entire project should take about 20 months to complete.
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