North Toronto CI readies for demolition

[attach]3444[/attach]The walls are set to come down — finally.

It’s been a long time coming for the demolition of the old North Toronto Collegiate building on Roehampton Avenue.

Students and staff moved into the new building on Broadway Avenue this past fall, and the old structure was supposed to be demolished in the summer to make way for a school field.

School trustee Shelley Laskin said the delay in demolition has been caused by the presence of asbestos in the building. Workers want to ensure it is demolished in a safe manner.

“(The asbestos) is encapsulated, so it has to be done safely,” she said, adding officials have known for some time about the presence of asbestos.

Laskin said she’s been told everything will be ready to come down in late January or early February.

“It shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks and everything is still on track for the field to be ready for September 2011,” she said.

School principal Joel Gorenkoff said students are anxiously awaiting a new athletic field.

“We’re putting in an artificial turf field with a track and it will be going from the north to the south, from Roehampton to Broadway and we’re expecting that for the beginning of September.”

In the meantime, Gorenkoff said the school had been making good use of the field at Eglinton Park for practice games.

“Now, it’s not pertinent because it’s the winter season and most of the stuff is done inside,” he said. “But during the spring and the fall seasons … we’ve been using Eglinton field.”

Gorenkoff said that they are still hoping everything will be ready for the start of the next school year.

“We were hoping, but then we had heard it would be in the middle of November and we were planning for that,” he said. “We’re quite anxious that it happen.”