Construction of the new Richard McBride Elementary School is getting a boost from COVID-19 – at least for now.
Dave Crowe, the New Westminster school district’s director of capital projects, updated trustees about the project at the school board’s May 12 operations policy and planning committee meeting (held online via Webex).
“It’s very much a good news story. Richard McBride is going very, very well,” he told trustees. “We’ve been able to take advantage, actually, of some of the issues that COVID has brought forward.”
Crowe noted excavation and earth work on the site has been faster than anticipated because there are no students in the school and because there’s significantly less traffic in the area, which helps the trucks that are taking material off the site.
“The excavation process has gone considerably quicker than we expected,” he said.
Crowe noted the district has been able to accelerate some of the processes originally scheduled for July.
“We’re picking up some of the delay that we experienced at the very beginning of the project,” he said. “We haven’t picked it all up, but it’s certainly trending in a positive direction.”
One of the district’s concerns going into the construction project was the potential impact on the neighbourhood, especially with regards to traffic flow. Traffic around the school is already notoriously bad, particularly at school pickup and drop-off times, and construction had posed a potential complication.
But Crowe said that hasn’t come to pass.
“We’ve had absolutely no complaints from the neighbours,” he said. “We’ve had zero complaints – several inquiries and queries, but zero complaints for any sorts of traffic problems.”
Trustee Anita Ansari questioned whether the McBride project has been affected by the same COVID-related issues that have slowed the progress of the replacement New Westminster Secondary School – issues with supply chain and with the number of workers able to be present on site.
Crowe said those issues haven’t yet cropped up on the McBride project.
“We have not experienced any significant COVID-19 influences,” he said.
But he said that, if there is to be an impact from labour-related challenges, it’s more likely to happen in September, when more tradespeople will need to be on site.
“With all of the unknowns we have, with what’s going on in the supply chain and in the whole labour force in general, it’s hard for us to predict that,” he said. “But we’re good through the summer because it’s still strictly earth works and excavation work, and so far those trades are unaffected or (there has been) very little effect on them.”
Ansari also questioned what extra health and safety protocols are in place on site to deal with COVID-19.
Crowe said it’s relatively easy to provide appropriate physical distancing at the McBride site because there aren’t many workers there at the moment. He also noted the site has hand-washing stations and that health-related protocols and procedures are posted on site at the crew trailer.
The new Richard McBride Elementary School, set to replace the seismically unsound, 90-year-old existing structure, was originally scheduled to open in January 2021 at a cost of $22 million.
Since then, both the budget and the timelines have been extended. It’s now projected to cost just shy of $35 million. The latest schedule calls for a possible school opening in December 2021 or January 2022, with demolition of the existing school and full completion by September 2022.
