The Greater Essex County District School has got itself into a predicament.
The board recently purchased the former International Playing Card Company on Mercer Street with a plan of demolishing the building to make room for a new Giles Campus, but in a unanimous vote city council has moved to have the historic building designated as a heritage property...meaning it cannot be torn down.
Superintendent of Education, Todd Awender, says the board now has 30 days to negotiate with the city before the final bylaw to designate is passed.
He says the board is willing to discuss preserving heritage aspects of the building.
"There is probably not any of the structural part of the building that we could salvage. However, there are certain components to it we can discuss and then look at seeing if it can be done in the construction of the building as far as the windows and how they look now versus how they could look in new construction."
Awender says it's a shame because the site is perfect.
"We were looking for a site that was as close as possible to the current site that we could put the new building on and we found this, in partnership with the city who was hopeful as well because Wigle Park is right beside that. So we were hoping there was going to be something there that we can get and help both areas out."
Awender adds a new school would help revitalize that neighbourhood.
"We find that with a lot of the new builds that we've put up in a number of the areas that we've done in the recent past there's been that excitement so that families are moving into the area and are wanting their kids to go into these buildings."
The public school was granted $15-million from the Ministry of Education and had intended to have the new Giles Campus open for the 2018 school year.
The roughly 700 current Giles Campus students are being housed at a temporary location at the former W.D. Lowe High School.