The new Royal Oaks K to 9 school opening in 2016 will have a space to share with the city. The Grande Prairie Catholic School District and the city have found an opportunity for collaboration in a field house that would be used primarily as a community space, but would also allow for extra programming for the school. However, Superintendent Karl Germann says the city’s investment in the project will be deferred for a few years until after construction on the school is complete.
“You build it to a school construction standard it’s a very high quality and you get a lot of concrete in it, and you get a lot of concrete block, but maybe in a field house you don’t need that same kind of quality and so you can build it more like a basic metal building and it would save a lot of money. It would probably come in at less than half the cost.”
Depending on the size of field house, costs for the project will likely start at around a million dollars.