Drilling underway as former Ritson Road School in Oshawa is prepared for redevelopment

Site assessment drilling will get underway this month as the Region of Durham prepares to turn a 101-year-old former elementary school in Oshawa into a community use and affordable housing project.

The vision for the Ritson School Project will see the renovation of the school building to be used for community programs that “meet the current and future needs of residents in the surrounding neighbourhoods,” according to a statement from the region. The project will also examine the unused lands on the school property for opportunities to include mixed-use and sustainably-built housing.

The drilling activity at 300 Ritson Road is needed to gather information about the soil and groundwater conditions and is part of the region’s ongoing site assessment and planning efforts as it prepares for future construction.

The target date for shovels-in-the-ground is the spring of 2025.

The original school structure was built in 1923 on a prominent rise on Ritson Road, just north of Olive Avenue, for the sum of $54,000. The school, which saw three additions – the last in 1975 – was named after John Ritson, Oshawa’s first teacher who arrived in the area in 1820.

Ritson Road School closed in 2012 after 89 years of service when the Durham District School Board closed three schools – Ritson Road, Duke of Edinburgh and Harmony (which was also built in 1923) – and consolidated the students at Clara Hughes Public School, which was built on the Duke of Edinburgh site.

After sitting dormant for nine years the board started the process of selling the property in the spring of 2021. The building was first offered at fair market value to the other school boards and then to various governments and government agencies.

The price tag for the building and the 5.14-acre property was $7.49 million, with the Region of Durham taking possession of the then-99-year-old building on January 26, 2022.

Durham has held a series of public meetings since then, asking the public what they would like to see at the school. The meetings were labelled as “opportunities” to help meet the current and future needs of residents through “affordable and market-rent housing, and community programming.”

The region said when the sale was finalized the building required some work for energy and accessibility improvements and that staff would be working on creating a ‘master plan’ to maximize use of the facility. “This site has a lot of potential and the region wants to ensure this opportunity is leveraged.”

Oshawa Councillor Brian Nicholson called the project a “signature redevelopment” that will “set the tone for future affordable housing projects in our city.”

The region is expected to preserve the neo-gothic heritage qualities of the building while converting it into community use.

For more information on the Ritson School Project, visit durham.ca/RitsonSchool.

Ritson Road School students in 1956. Photo supplied by Peter Yourkevich