School board starts move into new building

Staff members at the Calgary Board of Education have started moving into the school division's new headquarters.

The school board gave the media a tour Tuesday of theBeltlinebuilding, which features a new office tower and an annex built onto a renovated school.

The facility at 1221 Eighth Street S.W. has space for the CBE to possibly grow into, with two floors of the office tower currently being leased out to other tenants.

The CBE is leaving behind its cramped, 1960s-era headquarters downtown and headed over to the building on 12th Avenue S.W.

"We have been living in a building that's nearly 50 years old," said CBE capital planning and development director Eugene Heeger, who defends the new space as badly needed.

"Technologies have changed, our profile has changed and I think it's most appropriate to make the appropriate investment that we have in this particular facility to take us into the next few decades."

School board spokesman Ted Flitton said the move would be gradual, with more than 500 workers from several sites eventually being in place.

"This is the first wave of people who have just moved over, and we'll see another wave in the next few weeks and then another wave and then another wave," said Flitton.

The head office was a controversial issue in the 2010 municipal election, when some school trustee candidates questioned the board's spending priorities, but the board recently rejected a motion to review the arrangement.

Trustees signed a 20-year lease for the building at rates set during the height of Calgary's building boom five years ago.

The old school board headquarters at 515 Macleod Trail S.E. will be put up for sale later this year.