The nervous wait to see what will become of Taieri College's fire-damaged Hislop Hall is over.
The Ministry of Education has announced it will demolish the 49-year-old school assembly hall and replace it with a new building.
The hall was severely damaged in an electrical fire in November last year, and thousands of dollars worth of property, including sports uniforms, trophies, portraits of former principals and school magazines dating as far back as the 1950s were destroyed.
Principal David Hunter said many people would have fond memories or their times in Hislop Hall, and would be sad to see it go, but the situation provided an opportunity for the school to design and build a multipurpose performing arts facility.
‘‘It is a great vote of confidence [from the ministry] into where we are heading as a college.''
He said the ministry had informed the school the hall would be demolished as soon as possible. As for when, and how much it would cost to replace, was not yet known.‘‘All of that is still to be negotiated.
‘‘No doubt there will be a tender process. They [the ministry] do work on entitlement, which means the school will be entitled to a certain amount of floor space and they have a formula to calculate that.
‘‘What I can say is we're going to get something acoustically better, better insulated and more multipurpose from what we've had - particularly, in regard to drama and music.''
Late last year, the school's $4.1 million library, administration and teaching blocks was completed.
‘‘Having another new building just adds to the value of our campus. It's very good news.''
Mr Hunter said it had been a silver lining to the drama of having a serious fire on school property.
‘‘I'm quite relieved about the decision, actually. It's been just short of five months now since we've had the fire, and we were sort of on tenterhooks waiting to see what would happen - whether they [the ministry] were going to refurbish using the old shell of the building, or rebuild it.''
Historically, the school had shared its hall with the community for events, and Mr Hunter hoped that would continue with the new building.
