Demolition crews have begun tearing down the back of the former Barrie Central Collegiate and preparations are underway to complete the job.
Heavy equipment is being used to knock down walls on the south side of the building in a fenced off area on Bradford St.
Fences are going up around the entire property in order to proceed with the demolition.
"Obviously this was something that we knew was coming since the school board made the decision that it did some years ago," said Mayor Jeff Lehman, a graduate of Barrie Central.
Lehman was referring to the Simcoe County District School Board's decision to shutter the high school and sell the property.
HIP Developments plans to build a residential tower at the site and an adjoining property with the Prince of Wales School. The selective demolition of the Prince of Wales has been underway for a several weeks. HIP plans to preserve the facade and walls of the school to serve as an entrance to a park.
HIP President Scott Higgins told BarrieToday.com that the Fisher Auditorium will also be preserved due to the city's desire to reconstruct the theatre into a multi-purpose cultural and events centre.
"Obviously we've shifted our attention now to seeing if we can put something together that makes sense for Fisher Auditorium. So the demolition, I understand is starting at the far end of the building and they'll move gradually through the building over the coming weeks and months," said Lehman who had high praise for the developer.
"We do need to make a decision on that with HIP so we know whether that's going to proceed or not. We've been trying to finalize all the details in a very big hurry obviously because the Fisher project hadn't even been dreamed of in May of 2017 and here we are seven months later and trying to make some really hard and fast decisions about the future," he said.
"A lot of work has gone into it. Hopefully the next few weeks mean we can finalize our deal and be able to move forward."
The chimney at the high school will also be left intact to preserve it as a long-standing, popular habitat for chimney swifts and other birds.
The developer has hired an outside contractor to take the buildings down and much of the rubble will be put to use, possibly for the new development.
"It's amazing the uses that the demolition contractors find for various materials. Some of it is scrap and salvage. Some of it's reuse. But they find home for a lot of the material," Higgins explained.
Higgins says there could be big chunks of concrete that get crushed and reused as part of aggregate material in a new road.
"They find creative ways to salvage, reuse and resell and that's a key component of how they get the cost of demolition down is looking at the value of the material they're demolishing. A lot of it will be salvaged and reused in some capacity. Even I'm sure we'll crush some concrete and reuse it on site for aggregate base on what we're doing and things like that."
The demolition of the beloved high school is a bitter pill for many who fought to keep it or others who felt it should be used for other purposes.
"I guess my reaction today is there's no sign of the new high school in the south end and the whole idea was that this high school was being closed in part because there would be capacity in a brand new high school. It hasn't even started construction," said Lehman.
"I guess it's sort of reiterates to me, I don't really understand the decision in the first place. But we did know as of three years ago that this day would come and that part of the building would come down."
Demolition of Prince of Wales and Barrie Central should be completed within three months, he said.
