Eco retrofits putting downtown high school at the top of sustainability class across country

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This article was published 09/12/2024 (298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eco-friendly retrofits at a high school in downtown Winnipeg are expected to cut the 69-year-old building’s overall energy use by half, and set an example for campuses across the country.

Gordon Bell High School is being lauded as a national leader in sustainability in the education sector, owing to almost $5 million in renovations planned for the site on the corner of Broadway and Maryland Street.

Principal Vinh Huynh said thermal imaging done in January 2022 showed there was “red, everywhere.”

“There was so much heat lost (due to poor insulation and old windows). The leakage was tremendous,” said the administrator who has spent much of his career working out of the school at 3 Borrowman Pl., wherein temperature control has long been a challenge.

Winnipeg South Liberal MP Terry Duguid went to the grades 7-12 building, currently a partial construction site, on Monday to formally announce Ottawa is covering the tab for a “deep energy retrofit.”

He spoke at length about the local fallout of human-caused climate change, including an increase in floods, fires and droughts, and the importance of retrofitting buildings as part of a wider strategy to reduce emissions.

The Winnipeg School Division-run facility received $4.8 million for upgrades to the building envelope and the installation of new windows, among related projects, via a federal fund for green infrastructure initiatives.

Roughly 650 teens study out of the school built in 1956; the original Gordon Bell campus opened three blocks south of it in 1926 on the modern-day lot of Mulvey School.

Construction began in 2023 after the final bell rang for summer break. The remaining work is slated to be done by the fall.

Matt Henderson, superintendent of Manitoba’s largest school division, called the project “a guinea pig” of sorts.

Built-in sensors will soon allow for the school’s efficiency to be measured in real-time, Henderson said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada plans to draw on lessons from the project and develop a retrofit guide to inform energy-saving approaches in schools across the country.

(The federal government previously allotted $160,000 for the aging secondary school to do a front-end engineering study for the retrofit.)

Gordon Bell’s overall energy use is anticipated to drop by 51 per cent once the work has been completed, per estimates released by Ottawa. Natural gas consumption is slated to decrease by 71 per cent.

“This is the future of public architecture — it’s the idea that we’re trying to preserve the assets and bring them into the 21st century,” said Peter Sampson, a principal architect at Public City Architecture Inc.

Sampson, who described the school as a typical, stuffy old building with poor insulation, likened the ongoing retrofit to “putting a new engine in a car.”

The hefty project has required students and staff to relocate to different classrooms and, at times, the boarding up of windows in learning spaces.

While acknowledging students and staff have experienced significant disruption, WSD administrators indicated the community will benefit from the final product, including more natural light in learning spaces, and a related reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Duguid, who is the government’s special adviser for water issues, echoed those comments.

“What you’re doing here is contributing to reducing our carbon footprint and creating not only a healthier environment here at the school, but also a healthier planet.”

Last year, Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division made history by installing 88 solar panels on the roof of Collège Jeanne-Sauvé — the largest renewable energy infrastructure project of its kind in Manitoba.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca