By Catherine O’Hara, REVIEW STAFF

Mother Nature has played a key role in ensuring that construction work at three new Catholic schools in Hamilton remains on track.

On the site of the new St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School in southeast Waterdown, brick and steel work has begun, explained Dave Morrissey, the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board controller of plant, at last Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting.

“I’m very pleased to report that it is now coming out of the ground, which is really quite a sight,” he said of the elementary school built to replace the aging Barton Street facility.
Construction crews, said Morrissey, have benefitted from the mild temperatures to move the project forward.

“We’ve been blessed with the weather we had, which allowed us to get a lot of work done,” said Morrissey.

“As much as you see above the ground, there’s probably five times that amount below the ground,” he added

The new Waterdown school will undergo another 10 to 12 months of construction before it is slated to open sometime in the fall.

Progress at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic School in Hamilton, according to Morrissey, is on track to open on January 31.

On Hamilton Mountain, Annunciation of Our Lord as faced some setbacks.

“Mechanically the building is in very, very good shape,” said Morrissey. However, a possible lack of coordination combined with other issues has caused extensive delays.

“When we started this school year, it was going to be (open) in November, then it got switched to December, then it got switched to the beginning of January, now it’s going to be in February… Can you explain why the delays?” asked Ward 8 trustee John Valvasori.

“In all fairness, I think the major problem has been to some degree the coordination,” said Morrissey, who noted that only three people were working on the school site over the weekend.

In an attempt to get the project back on track, Morrissey and other board officials were slated to meet with the owner of the construction company.

At the January 17 meeting, Valvasori called on Morrissey for information about the development of the St. Thomas More Secondary School addition.

The controller of plant explained that preliminary designs have been sketched and that the project is slated to go to tender sometime in late spring.

The plans, which call for a 15-classroom addition, modifications to the parking lot and reconstruction of the entrance, will also feature a glass-enclosed staircase.

“It will be a very attractive addition to the school,” he said.

Board staff hope to begin construction, which is expected to take between eight and 10 months, in June or July.