All time tables regarding the Boundary Trails Health Centre expansion remain on schedule more than a year after the project began. Southern Health-Santé Sud's Kyle MacNair says all parts of the project are moving ahead on the originally planned timelines.
"Driving by on Highway 3. you saw an entire another building, the Community Services Building, the superstructure go up over the course of this summer," explained MacNair. "At the same time, the exteriors and work on the interiors on both the In-patient unit, that was the building that went up last last year mostly, and the energy centre, that's the backup generator systems, all the back of house stuff, all that envelope work and interior work."
The energy centre isn't viewable from the highway, being located behind the existing hospital, but work on it has been happening extensively through the Summer and into Fall. MacNair noted the energy centre needs to be finished first, in order to power up the Inpatient and Community Services Buildings.
"That has to be live and first, and that's scheduled in mid-summer (2024) to be totally completed," he added. "Then the Inpatient unit, from a construction point of view, is kind of late summer, early fall (2024), and then we take it over. Then we have to do all the stuff to prepare to move into it, so that'll take us into the winter period next year. That's the timeframes we've always been working with, and those timeframes are still the plan."
The Community Services building is on a somewhat longer timeline.
"We're still looking at early 2026, so in the first quarter of 2026, to get that building finished and move all of those activities from the existing hospital that we're wanting to move into that building in February, March 2026, and then the renovation phase will start up after that."
And even though the renovation work is still well over a year away, patience is already being encouraged, with MacNair admitting it may be a little cumbersome at times with renovations happening inside a still fully operational hospital.
"We're going to try to stage it, so it's the least disruptive as possible, but there's no question there's going to be a bit more noise, you're going to have to travel some hallways around some areas, especially when we get into the Emergency Department portion," he shared.
The first wing of the existing hospital to be moved will be the Administration area, which includes office space for Home Care, Public Health and meeting rooms of various types.
"That whole section is going to move into the Community Services Building, and then we're going to start that renovation for our expanded cancer care and ambulatory care unit, and then we'll shift into the emergency department after that," said MacNair.
MacNair admits it may be a little ambitious, but the hope is all of the renovation work will be completed by mid-2027.
The photo gallery below includes an aerial photo of the energy centre, an exterior view of the inpatient building and an interior view of one of the inpatient rooms.