Sentimental residents of the community may wish to say their goodbyes to the building that once housed the former Weyburn Junior High School.

Demolition of the old building is currently underway, having begun a full week ahead of schedule.

“The contractor is slowly separating some of the materials, what goes to different piles of the landfill, what materials may be taken to either the landfill or another location for re-use,” explained Facilities Operations Supervisor Jim Swyryda.

He said the contractor was able to begin early, as demolition was not set to begin until next week.

“Originally the demolition was scheduled to start the 15th of August, but the contractor was able to mobilize earlier to the site,” he explained. “So it helped to give us a jump of about a week ahead, hopefully maybe gain some time on the end of the demolition to start the groundwork.”

Swyryda said the project should take until late September.

“The entire project right now is scheduled for about six weeks, to complete demolition, clean up, concrete removal,” he said. “They need to trim the old piles off, and then put soil back in to do compaction tests.”

Construction of the new facility, which will become an elementary school for approximately 700 students, is scheduled to begin late this fall. More details on the new school plans can be found HERE.

But for now, demolition fans will be able to watch the old building come down, with the full wrecking ball experience.

“They’ll be using a multitude of tools, from the different grabbers that they have,” he said. “On the excavators, they do have the big balls, and they get to swing through some of the concrete walls as required.”

“They are moving from the east to the west around the gym change rooms, and then the last component to come down will be the gymnasium,” he added. “From that, they will remove the concrete slab, and all the concrete from the crawl space to make sure it’s all clear of debris prior to construction.”

More details can be found on the project HERE.


Demolition is underway at the former WJH (photo by Landon Field).

Demolition is an arduous task, but the contractor was able to start early (photo by Landon Field).

The demolition of the former WJH facility from the northeast perspective (photo by Landon Field).