City plans condos, green space for Delta Secondary
Sam Merulla envisions bright plans for Delta Secondary — plans that include green space and upscale condos on the property that houses Hamilton's oldest high school.
The Ward 4 councillor is pleased that last week, the city's heritage committee recommended city council designate the school at 1284 Main St. E. as a heritage property. That means any future development on the property has to take into account the heritage features for the stately 1924 building.
The school is scheduled to close in 2016. After that, Merulla said, the city wants to see a mixed-use property that includes condos and a much-needed park in the area. It would be fitting for a historic building that sits on important property in the neighbourhood.
“There are already a number of developers interested in it,” he said. “A lot of them are excited about this project."
The future of Delta has been precarious since last year, when the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board voted to close the school. Students from Delta, Sir John A. Macdonald and Parkview will attend a new high school in the Pan Am precinct, located where the former King George and Parkview schools are, with its parking lot a short distance away at Scott Park.
To get rid of the property, the school board will declare it surplus. Then it gives first dibs to the Catholic board and the city. The city plans to buy it and put out a request for proposal for interested developers, Merulla said.
Coun. Brian McHattie of Ward 1, who sits on the city heritage committee, says Delta’s historic features can’t be replicated.
“You’ll never duplicate all the neat little internal rooms, not to mention the auditorium,” McHattie said.
The building has an “incredible elegance,” he said.
The process to designate the school as heritage began in April 2013, when city council added the property to the city’s Register of Property of Cultural Heritage Value or Interest, a city report says.
The city will put out a similar request for interested developers as it has done for the City Motor Hotel, Merulla said.
In 2013, the city took possession of the east-end motel, notorious for the number of times police were called there. Demolition happened over the summer.
The city will put out a call in the new year for interested developers to make the property a “commercial, residential and public transportation hub,” Merulla said.
The project, he said, will be “something we can look back on as a legacy project.”