North Vancouver has the 5th most dense city centre in all of Canada, which means there are quite a few people packed into the Lonsdale Avenue corridor and down into the Lower Lonsdale Shipyards District. Families with kids are not always able to find daycare and elementary schools in close proximity to the condo living at the waterfront. Which leaves opportunity for a new school to get built and setup to help with the education access shortage. This is where Alcuin College comes into the equation as they are building a new location at 300 West Esplanade near the BCIT Marine Campus and only a moments walk from Lonsdale Quay.
Technically Alcuin College is not a college in that adults go there for education or training, it’s a K-12 grade school where teachers are shared and courses and learning cross over with one another, thus why they call it a college and not a school. The real estate development project and land use was originally approved by City council in February 2017 and it’s slated to be finished within the next 24 months or so from now. Of course with any development there are always variables that take place with regards to time management and finishing things off.
The overall footprint of this new school will be about 15,000 square feet and the building will be 40 feet high. There will also be community spaces that can be used for meetings and workshops. The team members of the school will likely work with the City to create a park plan for Waterfront Park in the form of a stewardship program. Which it great for the students to get out into nature as a compliment to their in class learning.
Nearly 250 students will be able to call this school home and residents in the community with kids will soon be able to apply to have their children go to school here. Being that the school is K-12 it means they can go to the same institution for the duration of their learning, which allows for great friendships and community connections to take place and that’s what North Shore living in all about.
For more information about the project you can contact the school directly or download this detailed PDF about the development. We will be interviewing the developers of this school and will update the article.
