On Tuesday, parents of children who attend the Step-by-Step daycare at Coquitlam's Blue Mountain Park got the bad news.
By Thursday, they got the good news: City staff said the Scout Hall, which houses the after-school program and was deemed structurally unsound earlier this week, is expected to be repaired and should be open in time for school on Monday.
Raul Allueva, Coquitlam's general manager of parks and recreation, said the work necessary to keep the building open won't be as extensive as initially believed and crews should be able to complete the job over the next few days.
"The good news is that the city will be making some structural repairs to the Scout Hall building to keep these groups in place and operating as they have been," he said. "The work will take place over the next few days so that the building can be used on Jan. 8 for the return of school and without interruption to the users."
Workers doing routine maintenance on the facility over the Christmas break discovered dry rot in one of the corners of the building. The issue was severe enough that a structural engineer determined that the building could not be occupied.
Parents of children who use the daycare were told in an email Tuesday they wouldn't be able to send their children to Step-by-Step when school resumes next week and would have to make other arrangements for their children's after-school care.
"We have been advised by the city that Scout's Hall is structurally unsound and we are not able to occupy that building," said Nicole Isherwood, the president of the Step-by-Step Child Development Society's board of directors, in an email to parents Tuesday. "We are required to suspend care for your children in the afternoons until further notice."
Allueva said on Thursday that parents of the 25 children who use the daycare would be informed immediately the building would be ready by Monday.
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