A groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday morning for a new Lakeshore elementary school.
The two-storey public school will be built on a 5.7-acre site north of Girard Street and west of Rourke Line in Belle River.
Brad Gyori, manager of facility services with the Greater Essex County District School Board, said the school will serve 582 students.
"The school is going to tentatively open in September 2027," he said.
"We've kind of lost a little bit of time here due to the weather conditions. We had an extremely cold winter compared to previous years, so we're a little bit behind schedule right now but we do have a plan in place with the contractors and construction team on this to get us back on schedule."
Back in June 2024, the GECDSB approved the budget and construction for the school that was initially on track for a September 2026 opening.
Last December, the board provided an update stating that they were awaiting availability from the Ministry of Education.
Gyori said the province provided the board funding to source the land and begin design in 2020.
"At that time the funding was not adequate given the times, so we had to go through the process with the ministry increasing the funding," Gyori said.
"We had to go through an approval process to secure the funding. We were able secure just under $23 million for this project."
Gyori said the school is being built using insulated concrete forms, making it one of the first schools in the province to use this method, with the goal of achieving net-zero energy efficiency.
"The goal ultimately is to have the best lowest energy intensity school in our system," he said.
The build comes at a total cost of $22,908,249 and was awarded to Alliance General Contracting of Windsor.