The new West Niagara Secondary School has been approved by the province to go to tender.
That means the District School Board of Niagara will start to take bids from construction companies to build the new project next month. Construction is expected to start in the Spring of 2021 and be completed within 18 months, opening in the fall of 2022.
The school will have space for 1,533 students from Beamsville, Grimsby, and West Lincoln. The project is part of the Ontario government’s capital investment program to support students with better learning spaces.
It will be located at 5699 King Street and 4640 Durham Road in Beamsville, near Grimsby’s eastern border within the town of Lincoln.
On a Zoom call announcing the move to tender, Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff said: “Your children deserve a safe, state-of-the-art learning modern technologically connected and accessible centre. That is exactly what the West Niagara Secondary School will be.”
The greenhouse will have both an interior and exterior classroom. It will give the students access to specialty programming space if they enroll in the Agricultural Specialist High Skills Major Program.
The school, which will also feature a quadruple gymnasium, will consolidate three different regional high schools. That includes South Lincoln High School closed in June 2017, as well as Beamsville District Secondary School and Grimsby Secondary School. The latter two are slated to be closed at the end of the 2021-2022 school year.
“The bottom line is that this school is so important for the West Niagara community, and the futures of our students will be brighter because of it,” said Sue Barnett, DSBN Chair.