By Gord Bowes, News staff

Traffic will be directed away from the residential neighbourhood where the public school board’s new headquarters is scheduled to be built.
Unlike the three vehicle entrances off Millwood Place and Fieldway Drive to the current Crestwood school, the entry to the new board office will be from Upper Wentworth via a currently dead-ended road.
The board outlined its plans for its 21st-century headquarters at an open house last week. There was no apparent concern from neighbours.
Architects Paul Sapounzi of the Brantford-based VG Architects said he feels the traffic plan, the new building’s low-profile — only two storeys for the most part — and lines of trees around the property appeals to residents.
“It’s probably going to be a lot better than it is right now,” he said.
Crestwood opened in 1962 as a vocational school for boys. An addition was opened on the south side of the school in 1966, board staff said. Since 1999 it has served as the home of the board’s facilities and maintenance staff. It also currently houses the library services department.
Crestwood has also operated as the board’s alternative education program site since the early 1990s. Those students are scheduled to move in September as the board hopes to level the wrecking balloon Crestwood this summer.
Before it gets started, however, it has to work with the city on the site plan.
The board has not formally talked with the city about the project, nor has it submitted a site plan, said Joe Gravina, of the City of Hamilton’s planning department.
That process, which includes formal consultation, can take three to four months.
“It can go quicker depending on how quick they move through conditions,” said Gravina.
If all goes ahead as planned, the board plans to move staff into the new HQ in March 2014.
Lilian Orban, the trustee for the area, said while she would have preferred to see the board stay in its old location downtown, and previously fought against the move out of the 44-year-old building, she now supports the Crestwood site.
But with the sale of the current HQ still not closed — originally the deal to sell to McMaster so it could build a new medical centre was was to have been completed last October — Orban said other suitors might have to be introduced for 100 Main St. West.
“If they’re not going to come to some deal soon, I believe our board should go forward and look elsewhere and see what we’re going to do,” said the Ward 7 (central Mountain) representative. “How long are we going to wait before we get the ink on that contract?”
Orban said she was pleased with the architect’s plan for the new HQ, particularly how the building would blend in with the neighbourhood and with keeping traffic off residential streets. Her only concern was with the 400 parking spots planned for the site to accommodate the roughly 450 staff that would work out of the site.