The rumours are true: the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division is in the tendering process for the demolition of the old Souris School building.

"We've been trying to sell the property and the facility itself, since June of '21," said Gord Husband, Deputy Director of Human Resources and Infrastructure. "We've tried to encourage some of our local residents to take a look at the opportunity that the facility would provide. We've had some inquiries, but nobody really was at that point in time to take the initiative to make a proposal to us or a request to purchase."

He said other interested parties wanted the land but not the building.

"We've waited a little more than a year here, to try to see if we can get someone interested to purchase the facility itself and we were unsuccessful," he noted. "But we do have a proposal in front of us, at this point in time, for the land."

"So we felt that, with the costs associated with insuring a vacant building, heating a vacant building, and some of the vandalism concerns that we've had over the time that the school has been shut down, we had to move forward."

Husband said they've gone through their appropriate tendering process to get a demolition tender for the school.

"We have just started that process, with the abatement process inside the school, and then the external demo will be coming up in the near future," he said.

Demolition, he shared, will likely occur before the end of 2022.

While no interest was generated at Haig School with the building included in it, the Souris School building, which was built in 1910, differed from the Haig School building because the land was useful to the City of Weyburn for green space. Read more HERE.

"We've tried to be as patient as we possibly can, but we also have the responsibility of making sure that we we don't have vacant buildings that run a risk to the organization or to our community," he added. "So we've just tried to balance that out as best as we can."

Husband said the current proposal is from a reputable southeast developer.

Find the demolition tender application HERE.

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