Port Clements will have a new multi-purpose building within a year, but it won't include a gym.
The committee of residents working on the project decided last week to remove the gym in order to save $1-million, said village administrator Dana Schmidt.
The gym could be built in a second phase, if the village receives more grant money. However, the committee decided that raising $1-million from taxpayers was simply too big a burden for Port, Ms Schmidt said. Borrowing the $1-million so that the gym could be built right now would have added $176 a year to the average homeowner's tax bill for the next 30 years, she said.
The multi-purpose building construction committee is made up of all council members, as well as Corrina Hornidge, Dennis Reindl and Lisa Waring.
The scaled-down multi-purpose building can be built for approximately $3.2-million, Ms Schmidt said. The village has secured most of this through grants. The Ministry of Education is expected to contribute about $1.2-million, if the plan to put classrooms in the building goes ahead. The Ministry is waiting for the results of a study, expected next month, but "indications are very positive" that the classroom addition will go ahead, Ms Schmidt said.
Adding classrooms to the building will allow the school board to tear down the Port Clements elementary building, which is far too big for the current number of students and requires millions of dollars worth of heating, ventilation and seismic upgrades.
The plan now - as long as the classroom component gets the green light from the Ministry of Education and the local school board - is to construct the multi-purpose building on the school property rather than out by the community park and leave the school gym standing for use by the students and the community, Ms Schmidt said.
The project is scheduled to be complete by March 31, 2007.