Leamington to consider demolishing vacant high school after housing plan falls through

An old high school in Leamington is set to be demolished, but the town has to spend additional money to relocate Chimney Swifts from the chimney.

Leamington councillors will decide whether to demolish the former Leamington District Secondary School — a building that has sat empty on Talbot Street West since 2017.

A staff report, which councillors will discuss Tuesday evening, recommends awarding the demolition contract to Salandria Ltd. which submitted the lowest bid at just more than $822,000, compared to nine other companies that also submitted bids.

If approved, the work would involve asbestos abatement, tearing down the buildings and restoring the site, a process expected to take five to six months once underway.

The decision would close the book on a school that opened in 1953 and served generations of students before being replaced by a separate $32 million building in 2017.

Since then, the old school property on Talbot Street West has sat vacant.

Hopes had been high that the site could be transformed into badly needed housing.

The municipality purchased the land in 2020 with the aim of spurring development of attainable homes. A concept plan envisioned nearly 300 units, including two apartment towers and more than 100 townhomes.

In 2023, council even accepted a proposal from Amico Properties to carry out the project.

But after more than a year of negotiations, the deal fell apart. Municipal officials said they could not reach terms that would protect taxpayers while also ensuring the project’s success.

By early 2025, the plan was formally shelved.

The teardown would bring another complication: Chimney swifts, a threatened bird species, had been nesting inside the school.

To meet federal environmental requirements, the municipality is also planning to build a new habitat for the birds along a nearby walking trail.

The cost of that project is pegged at about $640,000, with Ottawa giving Leamington until March 2026 to finish the habitat work.

Both the demolition and the chimney swift project would be paid for from the town’s contingency reserve, which has a balance of about $5 million.