Henry Hudson Elementary’s yellow schoolhouse moves to the North Shore with the Squamish Nation
The Squamish Nation saved a bright yellow schoolhouse in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood from being torn down. The whole building is being moved to its new home by barge.
The old Henry Hudson building on the corner of Cornwall Avenue and Maple Street was going to be torn down to make room for a new elementary school, but the country came together to save it and move it to Xwemelch’stn, or the Capilano Reserve, where it will be used as a school.
“I’m so glad.”I’m excited,” Renewal Home Development’s Glyn Lewis said. He had worked for months to get the school repurposed and moved to a different community.
“We’re showing with this little yellow schoolhouse that there are better, more environmentally friendly ways to take down a building. We shouldn’t just bulldoze everything because it’s easy.
Lewis said that the schoolhouse project is a win for the group of people who are trying to get developers, construction companies, and other groups to switch from what he called the “demolition-first paradigm” in a growing city that needs quick development to more sustainable building practices.
“In general, I agree with making the area more crowded, and I understand why we’re doing it. The problem is that the process of making our area more dense is so inefficient,” said Lewis.
The Squamish Nation said in a statement that the building would help the country meet its “urgent infrastructure needs.”
“The building will be updated and repurposed by the Nation as a center for early childhood education where Swxw7mesh children will learn Swxw7mesh snchim (Squamish),” it says.aid.
WATCH | A 100-year-old schoolhouse is moved by boat:
Barge takes schoolhouse to North Vancouve
At 10 p.m. on Tuesday, a crew from Nickel Bros. house movers loaded the whole schoolhouse onto a trailer. During the next three hours, it crawled a few blocks west to Kitsilano Beach, and then at 4 a.m. Wednesday, it was put on a barge.
After an hour, the ship left for English Bay, where it waited for high tide before going north of Stanley Park and under the Lions Gate Bridge in the middle of the afternoon.
It was supposed to arrive on the North Shore on Wednesday night and be moored near the Lions Gate Bridge until Thursday, when it would be moved to its permanent spot on the reserve.
Lewis said that Wednesday was chosen for the move because it will be the day with the highest tide of the year.
Lewis said that he met the people of the Squamish Nation by chance.
During a conversation, Bob Sokol, the nation’s director of planning and capital projects, mentioned the community was looking to start a new school to teach children the Squamish language and wider culture.
“I said, ‘Well, Bob, would you be interested in saving, relocating and repurchasing this little yellow schoolhouse from Henry Hudson Elementary? And Bob got really excited about the idea,” Lewis recalled.
Five months later, the plan was in place.
The move will cost $150,000. Just over half of that budget — $80,000 — is coming from money the Vancouver School Board had set aside to tear the schoolhouse down.
The original structure was built in 192 as a Manual Training School, where students could learn practical skills and crafts like metal and woodworking. According to Heritage Vancouver, it was going to be torn down as part of the school board’s seismic mitigation program.
Lewis said the building was an ideal candidate for repurposing.
“We confirmed that it’s in good condition. It’s 110 years old, but it’s got beautiful, first-growth beams in it, and a lot of the systems were upgraded in the last 15 years,” he said.
“It would have been a shame [to demolish it].”
Lewis said developers and builders have three sustainable options before tearing a building down: infill or build around it, relocate and repurpose it or dismantle it carefully to salvage materials.
He said the Vancouver School Board considered the infill option, but it was ruled out.
CBC News has contacted the school board for comment.