After two years of formal planning, consulting, designing and working closely with the Ministry of Education and community partners, the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board is pleased to announce it has awarded the contract for the construction of the new state-of-the-art high school in Sioux Lookout to Everstrong Construction Limited, with work to begin immediately.
Following the closing of the tender process and consultations with the KPDSB's architectural firm for the new school, Evans Bertrand Hill Wheeler, the Board of Trustees voted at a special board meeting held on August 23, to award the contract to Everstrong Construction Limited at a total cost of $24,083,000.00. Everstrong comes highly recommended with extensive experience in school construction and will utilize several subcontractors from Northwestern Ontario.
Contributions from the Ministry of Education for the new Sioux Lookout high school total $24.7 million with total construction costs reaching $30 million including partner spaces. The construction and ultimate completion of the new facility is anticipated to take approximately two years, with an expected opening in September 2018.
Mitzie Hunter, Minister of Education, said "Our government is proud to invest in capital projects like this new high school and community hub in Sioux Lookout. Facilities like this support students by giving them modern facilities and greater opportunities to learn in a high-quality environment."
"It's exciting for us as a Board of Trustees to see this project reach this point today, where we are awarding the construction contract," stated Dave Penney, Board Chair. "We welcome Everstrong to the project and look forward to working with them as we get closer to opening up the doors to our new secondary school in Sioux Lookout."
Sean Monteith, Director of Education, added "After two years of diligently working with the Ministry of Education and our partners, and with a year before that of working with the Ministry to advocate for this new high school, it is incredibly gratifying to see this contract awarded and this most significant milestone now met. We are well on our way."
