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School board HQ on target for summer opening
(Hamilton Mountain News, Gord Bowes, Dec 9 2013)

The windows will be going in soon and the interior of the building will start to take shape over the next few months, says the project manager of the public school board’s new Mountain headquarters.

“As long as it is enclosed in January I feel comfortable it is progressing (on schedule),” said Melissa Cohen-White, and the project should be be ready for staff to move in during July.

The building should be closed in by the end of January, she said. Some interior work which doesn’t depend on the building being enclosed has already begun, she said.

Exterior work such as the aluminum cladding will be done after that, but all the interior work such as drywalling can proceed, said Cohen-White.

Central Mountain councillor Scott Duvall said traffic lights will be installed at the intersection of Upper Wentworth and Fieldway Drive, which is being renamed Education Court, to help with increased traffic in and out of the area.

The tender for the work will go out early in the new year and the work, which includes reconstruction of the traffic islands, should be completed before the headquarters opens.

The board is paying the cost of the intersection work, he said.

The new headquarters was deemed necessary to house the all board’s administrative staff, which were spread out over five locations, and in order to avoid extensive renovation costs of its Education Centre at 100 Main St. West.

It is being built on the site of the former Crestwood school on Millwood Place, west of Upper Wentworth. The $31.6-million building was approved in 2011 after the school board sold Main St. West property to McMaster University for a health campus.

For over a year, administrative staff has been housed in space at the Standard Life Building, the Stelco Tower and the Robert Thompson Building, and using Hamilton City Hall for its board meetings.

The board is also moving the Mohawk Trail school to the new headquarters site. The school was built in 1882 and located at the corner of Mohawk Road West and West 15th Street.

That move will probably occur in March or April, said Cohen-White.