The historic Riverside Bungalow School building has stood tall since 1920, but it’s also been sitting vacant for several years and now the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) intends to sell the property.

The Bridgeland-Riverside Community Association (BRCA) is now pushing for the 101-year-old building to be properly designated as a historic resource, otherwise the school could be torn down.

“It would be a huge blow to us and to the entire community — the entire city, really — and anybody who is interested in heritage. Because it is heritage building, it’s important,” said Deb Lee, who leads the BRCA’s heritage committee.

Gian-Carlo Carra, the Ward 9 councillor, said he only learned that the building could be sold last week. He says he will be asking city administration to look into whether a partnership could save the building.

“I’m planning on asking a question on November 15 at (city council’s) question period about how can we do this better in the future? And what specifically can we do about this situation?” Carra said Wednesday.

“I hope there’s an opportunity to go back to the school board and say, ‘Hey, why don’t we look at the whole site?’,” he added.

Carra says there may be an opportunity to come up with long-term plan to preserve the old school building and reconfigure the school yard area and better use it for the nearby Riverside School, which is located on the other side of 1 Ave. NE.

He says the city was asked by the CBE whether there was a municipal use for the building and it was determined it wasn’t needed by any city departments.

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