Budget finalized for long-awaited Olympic Village elementary school

Article content

The budget has been finalized for the long-promised elementary school at Vancouver’s Olympic Village, said the B.C. government, although it won’t be ready to take students for at least another five years.

The site on Columbia Street north of Hinge Park has been earmarked for a school as early as 2007 when it was identified as a location for a school in the city’s southeast False Creek official development plan. In 2020, the NDP government promised to fast-track the project.

Article content

Article content

But today the site remains a grassy field as surrounding schools struggle with overcrowding.

On Friday, the province said it is funding $150 million for the new four-storey school, which will have space for 630 students and a rooftop play area and neighbourhood learning centre that will house a child care centre for 60 school-age kids.

“While there is still significant space for students in many Vancouver schools, we continue to see pockets of high of enrolment growth in areas such as Olympic Village and Kitsilano, and expect more growth from new developments such as the Senakw development,” the Vancouver school board chair, Victoria Jung, said in a statement.

“The funding provided will significantly alleviate the enrolment pressures faced by these communities, and we extend our heartfelt gratitude to the province for their support.”

Construction of the Olympic Village school is slated to start in 2027. It is expected to welcome students in September 2029.

Friday’s announcement is a “significant step forward,” said the education ministry. “Our government is focused on building new and expanded schools in communities that are growing and facing enrolment pressures,” said Education Minister Rachna Singh in a statement.

Article content

Article content

For parents living in Olympic Village, it’s been a long and frustrating wait.

Currently parents have to send their kids to the catchment school, Simon Fraser Elementary, on West 15th Avenue off Main, about a 25-minute walk away.

That school was operating at nearly 180 per cent capacity last year, according to school board statistics, meaning families who didn’t get lucky in the kindergarten admission lottery have to go even farther to attend school.

Demand is only expected to increase in the coming years as up to 50,000 new residents move into the area as part of the Broadway plan. The school board forecasts Simon Fraser Elementary will be at 238 per cent capacity by 2029.

For more than a decade a new Olympic Village school has been at the top of the Vancouver school district’s annual capital plan funding submissions to the province.

The Education Ministry said it also plans to add space for 145 more students at Henry Hudson Elementary in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood, where construction is currently underway for a new replacement building.

The six new classrooms, funded by an additional $15 million from the province, would bring the school’s total capacity to 535 students.

Article content

Henry Hudson is the closest elementary school to Sen̓áḵw, the Squamish Nation’s proposed 11-tower, 6,000-unit development at the foot of the Burrard Bridge.

The province also said it has provided $526 million toward new, expanded or seismically upgraded schools in Vancouver over the past six years, including David Lloyd George Elementary and Bayview Community Elementary, both replacement builds.

— with files from Katie DeRosa

chchan@postmedia.com

x.com/cherylchan

Article content