Chapman School is being torn down once and for all, following an 111-year-old lifespan often marked by misfortune and mishap.
Construction crews were on site at 3707 Roblin Blvd. on Wednesday to tear down the third and final version of the school.
The original building, established in 1913, was set ablaze three years after it welcomed its inaugural cohort. A replacement was destroyed in a second fire that broke out during the Second World War and it was hastily resurrected.
“It’s always unfortunate when we see historic property come down, particularly in Charleswood; they have such limited historical buildings there,” said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg.
The campus was named after George Chapman, the first reeve of the now-defunct rural municipality of Charleswood and inaugural chairman of the area’s hyperlocal school division that was swallowed by Assiniboine South, and, after the latest round of amalgamations in 2002, Pembina Trails.
Tugwell said the school itself and surrounding green space bordered by Roblin Boulevard, Alcrest Drive, Vialoux Drive and a line of backyards on Princeton Boulevard, hold historic significance and are believed to have been used by the Red River Métis.
It’s disheartening that yet another park is shrinking, she said, noting recent headlines about housing projects slated for the Parker Lands in Fort Garry and St. Norbert’s Lemay Forest.
A local real estate company bought the campus, which includes a school, daycare facility and playground, from the Pembina Trails School Division in 2019 for $2.41 million.
Karma Development Group is transforming the grounds into a high-end condominium complex dubbed “Princeton Estates.”
Realtor Adam Nemy said a line of trees along Vialoux Drive has been dedicated to the City of Winnipeg to preserve green space.
Following numerous rezoning delays at city hall, the current blueprint includes 20 bungalows and an apartment-style building with a yet-to-be-determined number of units.
Iglesia Ni Cristo, a nontrinitarian Christian congregation, previously pitched a purchase that would keep the current green space intact and use the building as a community centre, school and church. That deal fell through.
Pembina Trails trustee Craig Stahlke, who was the division’s secretary-treasurer at the time, said the provincial government rejected the 2018 deal because the successful bidder made a higher offer.
(Stahlke and then-superintendent Ted Fransen confirmed the Progressive Conservative government requested the division hand over a larger-than-usual chunk of the sale proceeds.)
Chapman last operated as a public school in June 2016; earlier that year, parents requested the student body be transferred to a larger elementary school nearby to access more opportunities.
There were 51 students — only three of which were in Grade 3 — enrolled at the start of its final year of operations.
As far as Fransen is concerned, change was long overdue, owing to dwindling registration and space at Royal School, located within walking distance to it at 450 Laxdal Rd.
“Legend has it that as early as 1979, when the population boom was coming to an end, it was already considered to be unnecessary to keep Chapman open,” the former superintendent said, adding the 2008 moratorium on school closures complicated discussions that began long before he joined Pembina Trails in 2005.
Trustees cannot shutter a school attended by students in 2007-08 without written approval from the minister of education.
Pembina Trails rented out the Chapman property briefly, before receiving permission to list it. Community consultations yielded heated debate about a lack of child-care spaces in the area and city at-large.
Multiple people told the Free Press the building was in significant disrepair.
Remediation efforts began late last year to address “lots of asbestos” inside the building in the lead up to the demolition, per the realtor working for Karma Development Group.
Tugwell said schools are difficult to preserve because they are typically owned by the provincial government and historical protections of any kind often depend on community advocacy and political will.
“We need housing, but not at all costs,” she said.
Charleswood residents have expressed a desire for the developer to “respect the oral history of the community,” Tugwell added.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she joined the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
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