A new entrance is being constructed in front of the school to accommodate construction

A two year construction project is underway at Steinbach Regional Secondary School. A 105,000 square foot addition is being built to house grade 9 and 10 students plus the vocational classroom area will be enlarged.

Hanover School Superintendent Ken Klassen explains what is happening in the early stages. "They've begun by setting up the construction site so that it will be safe, with fencing. They're making a major modification to the front of the school. They're putting in a new fire lane off of Mckenzie Avenue rather than Chapel Drive so there will be a small turnaround in front of the school for parents dropping off children and so on. That will allow them to completely fence off the construction area for the new building, much safer for everybody involved."

He adds drilling of piles has begun on the east side of the school where the vocational labs will be expanded as well as on the west side of SRSS where the bulk of the addition will be done. Klassen says, "You won't see much in terms of structure for quite awhile because they'll be drilling quite a number of piles and then pouring grade beams. They put the floor on top of that and then you'll start seeing the walls go up but that probably won't be for awhile. We are asking the public, the students and the staff for their support in terms of keeping this a very safe site. We've moved our parking to the back and that's working out quite well."

Speaking of safety, Klassen notes, "We've added an additional safety liaison person. We had two of them before, we'll now have three. The additional person will be keeping a close watch on the day-to-day construction and any interaction between students and those sites. We feel that we're putting everything in place to make this a safe venture."

Klassen says crews will begin replacing the existing roof in the coming months. "They will be working throughout the winter. They'll be starting with the gym and replacing the entire roof on the gym and then moving on to the classroom wings. We'll have to coordinate that with our programming. Anything that would be very disruptive of classes has to be done in the summer months."

Construction of piles is underway