Public board announces LaSalle land purchase for new school

A new Prince Andrew elementary school will be built on slightly more than six acres of property purchased in LaSalle, the Greater Essex County District School Board announced Tuesday. The new school will tentatively open in September 2020 on the east side of Judy Recker Crescent. A purchase price was not disclosed. The school will be accessed from a new street to be constructed off Laurier Parkway.

“This is an outstanding location for us,” said Erin Kelly, the board’s director of education. “It’s a more central location in a growing area that’s close to recreational facilities and Sandwich Secondary School.”

Kelly said the initial design calls for a larger building than the current Prince Andrew, an aging facility with several portable classrooms at its location on Kelly Road.

“They’ll be getting a brand new facility near Sandwich secondary and the Vollmer Centre so there’s opportunities there,” Kelly said. The new school will be able to accommodate 423 students, approximately 100 more than the existing building.

In October 2016, the Ontario Ministry of Education approved $9.18 million in funding to replace Prince Andrew.

LaSalle town council approved the new location last fall. Now, the board must settle on a design and submit both that and a budget to the ministry for approval. Trustees must also approve the budget and design and then it goes back to the town for site-plan approval.

A spokesman for the board said the hope is to put the project to tender by June.

The Prince Andrew project is one of five new builds planned by theboard.

Kelly said the board is still negotiating for land for a new kindergarten to Grade 12 school in Kingsville.

Land has already been purchased for a new high school in Amherstburg that would replace General Amherst and Western.

A site on Mercer Street will be home to the new Giles Campus French Immersion Public School, and the board is still working on a site for a school in Lakeshore to replace D.M. Eagle.

Once the new Prince Andrew is open, the old school will be declared surplus to the needs of the board and offered up for sale.