Abbotsford Times June 5 2012

Page 1

INSIDE: Business leaders tackle Family Day in our Chamber Voice Pg. 13 T U E S D A Y

June 5, 2012

19  N E W S ,

SPORTS,

WEATHER

&

Track stars battle the best

E N T E R T A I N M E N T  abbotsfordtimes.com

Huge ALR move

– JEAN KONDA-WITTE/TIMES

Thousands wandered Abbotsford Senior/Collegiate’s halls at an open house Saturday to celebrate the old school before it’s demolished.

Daffodil capital could change to $4.5 billion industrial park CHRISTINA TOTH CToth@abbotsfordtimes.com

R

First things first for old secondary Thousands say goodbye ahead of $45M replacement for Abby Collegiate

ROCHELLE BAKER RBaker@abbotsfordtimes.com

I

t may not have been a typical school day, but thousands of Abbotsford Senior and Collegiate alumni packed their alma mater Saturday to pay tribute to their old stomping grounds. Students and staff, past and present, gathered at an open house at Abbotsford Collegiate, formerly Abbotsford Senior, to prowl the home of the Panthers one last time. The remains of the 51-year-old school will be torn down to make way for a newly constructed $45-million facility set to open in the fall. Principal Lance McDonald, who is a 1985 Abby Senior graduate, said as many as 3,000 visitors

gathered to catch up with classmates or teachers, purchase and view school memorabilia, and pour over grad photos and yearbooks. “There have been so many graduation classes here that it made sense that many people wanted to walk the halls one last time,” said McDonald. “It was exciting . . . the visual of young and old, and seeing people showing their own children or grandchildren where they went to school.” It wasn’t only parents and children sharing memories but couples too, said McDonald. “A lot of high school sweethearts met at Abby,” he said. Former students who took part in alumni basketball, football and rugby games had one last time to run the fields or play in the school gym, known affectionately as the “The Pit.”

“We had ages right from the old timers to young bucks,” said McDonald. The day ended with a traditional school dance in The Pit, which saw 400 people, young and old, attend the sold-out affair. “There were 70-year-olds and people in their 20s, all reminiscing about their years at Abby,” said McDonald. The new school, which will house a new public library and act as a hub for the community, opens its doors in September, 2012. The new facility will be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold standards, featuring water efficiency and energy conservation systems and recycled or renewable materials.

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see GOODBYES, page A3

esidents of Bradner, the self-proclaimed ‘Daffodil Capital of Canada,’ will have to decide if they want to hang on to their bucolic country community, or welcome an industrial complex that proponents say will bring $4.5 billion in “economic benefits” to the region. The proposal is to remove 275 acres of farmland from the Agricultural Land Reserve to accommodate a 125-acre logistics park and possibly a new access to the freeway at Lefeuvre Road. To date, 22 properties up for exclusion from the ALR were listed in ads that ran in the Abbotsford-Mission Times on May 17 and 24, but a map indicates that another 12 properties could be absorbed by the project if it went ahead. The site would extend the 700-acre Gloucester Industrial Estates, which reaches east from 264th Street to the Langley-Abbotsford border and south from 56th Avenue or Roberts Road, along Lefeuvre Road to the TransCanada Highway. The Emerson Real Estate Group, a brokerage and see ALR, page A5

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