About $2.6 million in repair and renovation projects will take place at Nanaimo school district facilities over the next year.
Trustees gave preliminary approval last week to a list of projects developed by the facilities department. The projects will be paid for using the annual facilities grant, a special fund the province gives to districts for building maintenance work.
Big ticket items that take place at more than one school include $125,000 worth of flooring replacements, $750,000 in roof replacements, $100,000 for exterior painting and $125,000 toward the non-structural seismic program – securing items such as light fixtures, shelving and pictures that otherwise might move during an earthquake.
Major projects at individual schools include $100,000 to replace the Strathmore Street parking lot at Woodlands Secondary School; $200,000 for a boiler upgrade and exterior wall repairs to stop a water leak at Pleasant Valley Elementary School; and $300,000 for additional working space at both the facilities building and district administration centre.
Pete Sabo, the district’s director of planning and operations, said one-third of the $300,000 will be used to turn some of the warehouse space in the facilities building behind the administration centre into a meeting room because staff have had to use space in other buildings.
With the remaining $200,000, the district wants to add space at the administration centre for information technology staff to prepare and fix computers because the space at NDSS that IT staff currently use is no longer adequate.
Sabo said staff are looking into adding a portable or two for this purpose because the administration centre is full.