The new junior/senior high school for the Grande Prairie Catholic School District will no longer be built in Whispering Ridge. Superintendent Karl Germann says they came across site challenges in the subdivision, and are relocating to Arbour Hills. It all boils down to the sewer system.
“There’s an agreement between the County, the City, and Aquatera, and the County has to drain their sewer up to Clairmont [for treatment] before it drains it back down into the city. The school site that we had chosen is near the bottom of the Whispering Ridge subdivision, and so due to costs and time delays we had to actually relocate the school.”
Germann says it would have cost more than a million dollars to put in the sewer, and it would have taken an extra year. He adds that Arbour Hills was already the school board’s second choice.
“Originally the school site was too small, but the developer Prudential Lands came back to us and offered us more land; that’s going to make it an ideal spot. The other part that’s really good is it’s on 132nd [Avenue], right by the Bear Creek Golf Course, and so it allows us a lot of good access for transportation, whether it’s city transit or public commuting.”
One downside is that Whispering Ridge was more central for students walking to school, but Germann adds that many teens are driving anyways. The province wants the school opened in 2017.