There’s been no real progress towards making the Old Brick School habitable again.
It’s no secret that the old school at the top of 48 St. in Athabasca needs some work. The door is broken, the windows need replacing and the removable walls left by Athabasca Family & Community Support Services when they changed locations are still there.
The biggest question, though, is whether or not the building should be given a heritage designation. The building is definitely old enough to be given the designation – and the grants that go along with it – but if the school is given the designation, the cost for the necessary repairs would substantially increase in order to maintain the building to a historical standard.
The historical designation question has stopped any real progress towards fixing up the building or getting new tenants. In December, the Big River Arts Society spoke to both the town and the county – who share ownership of the building – about putting an arts facility in it. Since then, nothing’s been said about it.
“I received a letter from the county and the town saying that they were not able at this time to talk about tenancy,” said Gina Martel of the Big River Arts Society. “(I asked them to) keep me posted because that's where we'd like to see it.”
According to both Josh Pyrcz, chief administrative officer for the town, and Karl Kopan, communications at the county, there aren’t any new updates.
Martel, though, is keeping an eye on it.
“I recently spoke with (town) councillor Steven Schafer and mentioned that that's still something on the agenda. I just hope that it doesn't get forgotten about,” she said.
“It’s important to a lot of people in this town that something happens to that building, and we can’t just let it go to waste.”
