Demolition continues in $10.9m school redevelopment

REPORT: TIM SCOTT / PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON
REPORT: TIM SCOTT / PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON
Demolition work continues at Arthur Street School yesterday as part of a $10.9 million redevelopment project.

The project, for which planning began about nine years ago, will modernise and redesign elements of the more than 170-year-old school grounds.

Work began in 2022 with the demolition of the school’s main hall, two classrooms and the principal’s office. The demolition of the classrooms meant the school held some of its older pupils’ classes at Otago Boys’ High School.

Last month, the school held an opening ceremony for new classrooms completed earlier this year.

Arthur Street School is Dunedin’s oldest school, established as Dunedin’s Beach School at the foot of Bell Hill in 1848, before it shifted to Arthur St in 1877.

The school’s infant primary building, which dates back to 1877, is recognised as a Category 2 historic place by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

A years-long campaign by the Southern Heritage Trust to save the schoolhouse concluded with an announcement last year that it would be preserved.

Arthur Street School principal Kim Blackwood previously said the next phase of the work would include a makeover of the schoolhouse as well as the development of an all-weather turf playground. 

 

 

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