New Angus high school wins major award

Simcoe.com April 30 2012

ESSA TWP. – Angus’s new high school has won a major environmental engineering award. 

The Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB) and Greenland Consulting Engineers in Collingwood were presented the 2012 Consulting Engineers of Ontario Environment Award of Excellence for their joint project submission called Nottawasaga Pines Secondary School – Building for the Stewards of Tomorrow.

The award is the first professional engineering award won in Simcoe County by a Consulting Engineers of Ontario member.

“Nottawasaga Pines Secondary School is the result of wonderful vision, combined with superb planning, engineering, design and construction. It is one of the many ways we are enacting our board’s goal to ensure responsible stewardship of resources and to promote community partnerships,” said SCDSB director of education Kathi Wallace.

Nottawasaga Pines opened for students this school year and is a landmark project for the school board.

The sustainable development school building provides social and economic benefits to immediate and surrounding areas, as well as environmental benefits in terms of cleaning the air and water, addressing climate change and carbon footprint impacts, and restoring local habitat and biodiversity.

The school is also the first joint project between the municipality (Essa Township) and the school board, as the building offers a public library and community policing office.

“This is indeed an honour for the Simcoe County District School Board, Greenland Consulting Engineers and all of the partners who worked with us to make this environmentally-friendly, state-of-the-art school a reality for students in Essa Township,” said Robert North, Simcoe County District School Board chair. “We are very proud of this recognition for our newest public secondary school, and the recognition for our staff and partners.”

Collingwood-based Greenland Consulting Engineers provided the civil engineering design, landscape architecture design, and construction administration for the project.

“I am extremely honoured that CEO has recognized the Simcoe County District School Board, Township of Essa, County of Simcoe, Snyder and Associates and our company’s unique business model that enabled all partners, working together, to design and construct a sustainable building and site development plan,” said R. Mark Palmer, president and CEO of Greenland Consulting Engineers.

The total construction cost of the school was $23 million. The construction cost for the civil engineering and landscape architecture design components by Greenland Consulting Engineers was $2.6 million.

Greenland’s work included clearing and grubbing, an extensive project to remove loose un-compacted sand and replace it with engineered fill, road widening and turning lanes, a new water service connecting to the municipal system, as well as the design and construction administration of the sports field, not to mention the usual site servicing and landscaping of the site.