With the substantial completion deadline now in their rearview mirror, the staff of the Saskatchewan Energy Training Institute is getting ready to accept students.
In a recent announcement, the Â鶹´«Ã½AVeast Regional College, which owns and operates the ETI, said after a challenging construction period, the staff is expected to move from the Estevan Comprehensive School to the facility in January and they anticipate being open to students by Feb. 1.
But before they can take in students, ETI director Keith Madu said all involved will be very busy in January as they put on the finishing touches.
"When I come to work on (Jan. 3) I have all my furniture arriving so the first week of January should be all the furniture getting installed in the building," Madu said. "The second week of January we should have our contractor in that is doing all the audio/visual equipment. Third week of January we should be getting ready to move from (the Estevan Comprehensive School) into the new building. The fourth week of January hopefully we are just wrapping up loose ends."
Work on the $14 million institute, which is located in the Glen Peterson Industrial Subdivision, began in 2010 and continued throughout 2011. Although the wet weather that plagued the Estevan area hampered construction efforts, the bulk of the work wrapped up in late 2011 and Madu noted there are some little odds and ends that Quorex Construction is still clearing up. There will also be some landscaping work to be completed once the weather allows for it.
However their current focus is on their students. Madu said there are a handful of programs ongoing in their ECS location and those will not move until spring break to avoid any disruptions.
"We have to make sure when we move classes over it's to the benefit of the instructor and the student, not just saying February 1 you are here no matter what," Madu said. "Between February 1 and the end of your traditional school year, we will be moving programs over to the new building.
"But all the safety courses like first aid, confined space and fall arrest will start in the building as of February 1. With spring breakup coming, we'll probably triple the number of courses we run in that March, April, May time period so the building will get a real workout."
The ETI will also be home to an electrical and plumbing course, both of which are new for the college in Estevan. Madu said the start of the electrical course has been bumped back a month to accommodate the instructor's schedule.
"One of our biggest challenges right now for the college as a whole is finding instructors for any of our programs. We do have a good core of instructors and they can only teach so much and can't be in Estevan and Weyburn at the same time."
With a chance to finally view the near finished project, Madu said he is really happy with how things turned out.
"I think every student, everyone from Estevan and the province that walk through those doors is going to be very impressed with the look of the building, how it's multi-purpose from training labs to classrooms to an auditorium, to corporate boardrooms with video-conferencing," he said. "It's a really beautiful, functional piece of infrastructure for this part of the province."
When the initial plans were unveiled for the ETI it was obvious one of the highlights would be the auditorium in the centre of the building, which is encased in glass. Madu said there are already a couple of events booked into the auditorium. He added that along with being a beautiful room, it will also be functional.
