Shalom College has announced local builder Murchie Constructions will deliver an $8 million project, employing up to 40 people over 40 weeks.
The Waterford building will be under construction by the end of this month, building new classrooms, numerous break-out and gathering areas on two floors under one roof.
Principal Dan McMahon said the project would deliver state-of-the-art flexible learning areas for generations of Shalom College students.
“The new classrooms will provide much more modern facilities with very flexible spaces for cooperative learning,” he said.
“This building will also give us the capacity to take a current teaching block offline as a part of a refurbishment process.”
He said the the development would cater to the growth of the school, with an extra 100 students added to the cohort in 2020.
“This is a result of a small Year 12 class graduating and a normal size cohort beginning their studies in Year 7,” Mr McMahon said.
Shalom College partnership a win for region
Mr McMahon said the College was particularly pleased that a proven local builder, Murchie Constructions, would partner with the College for this project.
“It's anticipated that almost all of the workers and sub-contractors will be from the Bundaberg Region,” he said.
“Furthermore, Tony Madden Architects have worked extensively with the College over many years and will oversee the project.”
Murchie Constructions owner Andrew Murchie said the project was expected to generate up to 40 weeks of local work when it begins at the end of the month.
“In the peak of the construction phase we expect to have about 30 to 40 people working on this project every day,” he said.
“This is a pretty important job for us; we have done a lot of work for the Catholic Education Diocese and I think this project is definitely one of the bigger school projects we have come across in recent times.”
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