After more than a decade of advocacy from parents and community leaders, construction on the long-awaited North Calgary public high school is set to begin in January 2021.

On Friday, the government of Alberta announced Bird Construction, a Calgary-based construction company, was awarded the bid to build the school.

“Now during Christmas time, it’s a good time to share some good news after quite the challenging year combatting the pandemic,” Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda told Global News on Monday.

Panda said Bird’s experience in building projects like the high school was what awarded them the contract.

Parents have advocated for the school’s construction in Coventry Hills in the city’s northeast for the past 15 years.

“This is action… It’s not just talk, things are actually going to start happening,” chair of Advocates for North Calgary High School Kasia Gajewska said. “It was a very positive, very exciting call.”

It’s the biggest step towards construction since November 2019, when the province announced the North Calgary High School was one of 15 schools that would receive $397 million in funding for construction, design work and renovations.

According to Panda, construction of the school is set to be complete sometime in 2023, barring no complications due to the COVID-19 pandemic in its first year of construction.

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