The old Kelly Road Secondary school building is officially headed for retirement.

Construction on a brand-new building is set to begin this fall and will hopefully open its doors in September 2020.

School Board Chair Tim Bennett says it’s been a long time coming.

“Kelly Road has been on top of our capital plan for many years important. We now have a new school coming in a few years for students living in the Hart.”

Bennett says the transition to the new school should be painless.

“Kelly Road will continue to be an operational school until the new school is built, the new Kelly Road will be built on the same site, so what will happen is when the school opens we’ll just move across the field into the new building and the old Kelly Road will be taken down.”

Jobs Minister Shirley Bond says the project will be a good opportunity for young tradespeople.

“If you have a project over $15 million, contractors are required to hire apprentices on that project, so not only will we see a hundred and thirty-five jobs approximately on this project there will be a requirement to train apprentices at the same time and today we’re also adding additional funding from a program to put two new trades equipment in schools right across British Columbia so the school district here will receive money to actually provide new training to provide new equipment.”

The school district will contribute $1 million toward the project. The province is kicking in $43.3 million.