There are still many questions after plans for the region’s first French international school in Saint John were shelved.
LIFPA Don Bosco Saint John announced Tuesday that it had abandoned the project in Market Square months before the school’s scheduled opening.
“We are clearly disappointed, to say the least,” said Andrew Beckett, interim CEO of Envision Saint John, the region’s growth agency.
“We’d seen this as a great project for the uptown area that brought with it a combination of a great addition in terms of an opportunity for the local population but also a unique solution for the vacant space in Market Square.”
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LIFPA Don Bosco Saint John had planned to use two of the three levels of the former New Brunswick Museum exhibition centre in Market Square,
However, in a social media post, officials said the total amount of work needed exceeds estimates by 50 per cent.
“The administrators of the LIFPA must therefore abandon this project and would like to thank all the local and French partners for their support in this ambitious and meaningful project,” said the post.
“The LIFPA, which still wishes to open a French International school in the Atlantic Provinces, is currently studying all possibilities.”
The organization did not respond to a request for comment from our newsroom.
Beckett said based on recent presentations the school made to local councils, he suspects there were more factors involved than just increased construction costs.
“They’d made comment about being concerned about the level of local enrollment in the school. Also the soliciting of volunteers to play as host families for the students coming from France, I think was a little bit below what they’d hoped,” he said.
“I suspect it was a combination of all those factors that led to their decision.”
Beckett said his organization will now turn its attention to working with Hardman Group, the company that owns Market Square, to see if there are other ways to use that empty space.
He said they are also willing to work with LIFPA Don Bosco if it wants to look at other locations in the Saint John region.
