Mount Baker Secondary School’s graduation ceremonies in June will be moved to Cranbrook’s Memorial Arena due to construction at Western Financial Place.
The City of Cranbrook said that construction and renovations are expected to begin in May and continue through the summer months.
It added that it was not feasible to host the Mount Baker grad ceremony and the Gymnastics Club year-end show due to the number of contractors involved in the various projects in the building. The City said that it was important to be proactive and find an alternative solution ahead of time with both the Gymnastics club and Mount Baker.
“Its an unfortunate situation, but due to the small window of opportunity to get these projects done we really didn’t have any other options other than relocating grad,” says Stacy Paulsen, Facility Operations Manager with the City of Cranbrook. “We have promised to stay in touch with Mount Baker through this process and if there is any chance that we can somehow manage to accommodate the grad ceremonies in WFP we will certainly make it happen. We wanted to make arrangements well in advance to ensure that the committee had ample time to plan and provide an alternative solution.”
According to the City, the renovations will include the installation of a Videotron, new boards and glass, replacement of the arena’s barrel roof, roof beam welding and painting and electrical work and other improvements.