Oman Field

Pending ministerial approval the fate of the Oman School and Ashley Park School land will soon be in the hands of the city.

Chief Financial Officer with the Chinook School Division, Rod Quinton explains the agreement.

 "We have an agreement in place, that subject to ministerial approval we would transfer the two properties, the Oman school site and the Ashley Park school site over to the city for community development purposes."

John Oman donated the land in 1913 for the purpose of a public school. After the land donation a school was built and opened it's doors in January of 1914.

Quinton adds that the agreement includes a provision to provide space to construct a commemorative marker stone for Oman School.

"The community wanted to maintain some sort of commemorative marker for the stone, which was taken off of one of the older buildings there at some point in the past. Once the property has been determined, we will place that stone back as a commemorative marker."

A different timeline has been put into place for each site in order to allow for proper time to vacate the buildings.

Oman School land will be transferred over effective December 31, 2015 and the Ashley Park School transfer will be effective June 30, 2016.

Quinton adds that they have already received a letter of release for the Oman site from the province and they have not yet completed the application for Ashley Park.

A traditional sale is taking place with the sites being sold for a nominal amount.

Quinton says there is also additional language in the agreement that will see the city take responsibility for the demolition of the existing aquatic center once a new one is built.

Although Quinton says this could be many years done the road, the city will clean up the existing site attached to the comprehensive high school and the land will then be returned to a parking lot.