The Craig Street Commons in Parksville will close Jan. 1, 2026, following a decision by the Qualicum School District's board of trustees.
The facility, home to a variety of community-based activities and programs, could have been closed effective July 1, 2025, per the original motion brought before the board on Jan. 28.
An amendment by Trustee Julie Austin extended that time period, in the hopes an outside public organization would step in with a plan for the building, which is owned by the school district.
“I would like to give the opportunity for them to explore it a little further," Austin said. "So to that end I can’t vote in favour of this motion this evening to close the commons.”
The school district announced last spring it intended to close both the Craig Street and Qualicum Commons facilities due to the approximately $4 million to $5 million in capital costs that need to be addressed between the two.
The school district shut down four elementary schools back in 2014 due to low enrolment, including Parksville Elementary and Qualicum Beach Elementary, now known as Craig Street Commons and Qualicum Commons, respectively.
Trustee Barry Kurland said that his responsibility is to the students in the school system, and that he could not vote to keep the building open any longer.
“It’s doomed," Kurland said. "And I don’t care how much people have in proposals and it’s a wonderful thing that people want us to save it for those purposes, but it’s not gonna happen because we don’t have the money.”
He added the building needs work done on its roof and that several of its six boilers are not working.
“We’ve been limping along at 50 per cent capacity for a period of time and we’re at 33% utilization of those six boilers," said Phil Munro, director of operations for the school district. "We run on two boilers at the moment that could fail at any moment.”
Maintenance staff spend time at the site trying to rebuild the boilers, he added, but this work is not their specialty and represents time they are not working in the schools.
Trustee Elaine Young said she had hoped the building could have continued on as a public trust, similar to the Gabriola Commons, which she said started with a legacy donation and was held in trust by a society, which raised money to provide first a down payment and then a paid-off mortgage.
“I felt like if the community was interested in coming forward, that that would be a good blueprint for them,” she said, and added that she like the proposal by the Save the Commons group. “The reality is the school district is not a wealthy place."
Young pointed to the district's financial plan, which shows the school district is heading into "deficit situations".
Given the provincial government's $9.4 billion deficit, no new money will be coming from the province, not to mention the economic uncertainty on the way due to possible tariffs imposed by the U.S., Superintendent Peter Jory added.
“We are in static, or down enrolment, so there is no new money coming in,” Jory said. “If we were in growth, there would be some money that we could allocate to other causes, perhaps, if the board decided that that was a priority.”
Chair Eve Flynn said if “something catastrophic” happened, such as the heating system breaking down, there would be no time for tenants to adjust and the building would need to be closed immediately.
Since the Craig Street Commons is not designated an educational facility, it does not receive funding from the Ministry of Education.
The school district is in talks with the Town of Qualicum Beach regarding the future of the Qualicum Commons building, according to Ron Amos, secretary-treasurer for the school district.
