Quebec scraps FACE school renovations after cost balloons to $375M

1 week_ago 15

Montreal·New

The increasing outgo of renovating FACE — a bilingual schoolhouse adjacent downtown Montreal — is prompting the Quebec authorities to scrap the task altogether.

Permanent relocation of students to 2 antithetic schools to statesman adjacent schoolhouse year

Antoni Nerestant · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 06, 2025 10:56 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

Due to rising costs, the Quebec authorities is ditching plans to renovate FACE school, a one-of-a-kind bilingual instauration near Montreal's downtown halfway that welcomes simple and precocious schoolhouse students.

CBC News has learned that the outgo of renovating FACE schoolhouse has ballooned to $375 million — excessively hefty a terms tag for the provincial government, particularly successful airy of its budgetary constraints, which have led to cuts in some the acquisition and wellness sectors successful caller months.

In a missive to parents obtained by CBC News, the schoolhouse said the ministry had to enactment a "definitive stop" to the renovation project due to "the existent budgetary discourse and successful the involvement of the dependable absorption of nationalist funds."

The missive besides states that FACE's good arts programme volition beryllium preserved, but volition beryllium offered astatine 2 abstracted locations.

Elementary schoolhouse students volition beryllium relocated to a gathering astatine 4835 Christophe-Colomb Ave. That's about 4 kilometres distant from the existent FACE gathering connected University Street.

High schoolhouse students volition determination to a gathering located astatine 4251 St-Urbain St. successful 2032. That's about 2.5 kilometres distant from FACE.

The outgo of renovating the buildings connected Christophe-Colomb and Saint-Urbain is estimated astatine astir $200 million.

WATCH | Quebec is besides putting different schoolhouse renovations connected hold:

Budget constraints unit Quebec to intermission large schoolhouse renovations

Across the province, the Quebec authorities is putting large schoolhouse renovation projects connected hold. According to teachers and schoolhouse administrators, the hold means imaginable overcrowding successful immoderate schools and forces galore students to proceed learning successful less-than-ideal environments.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Education Minister Bernard Drainville said preserving the good arts programme is simply a priority, but the spokesperson stressed that the state "has an work to respect the public's funds."

"That's wherefore we're revising the project, without determination being immoderate interaction connected pupil learning," the spokesperson said.

FACE was founded successful 1975.

The schoolhouse has astir 1,300 students from the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) and the English Montreal School Board (EMSB).

The school's existent building, which is located successful the city's Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, conscionable beyond the city's downtown limits, was built successful 2 phases — 1 successful 1914 and the different successful 1924.

FACE's missive to parents states that an accusation league volition beryllium held connected Tuesday astir the autumn determination to the schoolhouse connected Christophe-Colomb.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antoni Nerestant has been with CBC Montreal since 2015. He's worked arsenic a video journalist, a sports newsman and a web writer, covering everything from Quebec provincial authorities to the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

read-entire-article