Hospital builders selected
Boreal Health Partnership to finance, expand and operate Stanton Territorial Hospital
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A consortium of companies known as Boreal Health Partnership has been selected as the "preferred proponent" of the Stanton Territorial Hospital expansion expected to start this fall.
It was one of three groups of companies bidding for the work. Yellowknifer sought the value of the successful bid, but that amount isn't being disclosed yet. Previous estimates peg the project cost at around $300 million.
"BHP has been named the preferred proponent, the GNWT is still in the process of finalizing the project agreement with them," Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger stated in an e-mailed response to the question.
Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins said he's glad to see an announcement made but is looking forward to getting more details.
He's hoping the government will explain the financial figures, timeline and design of the facility as well as provide an idea of what local jobs will be available.
"Like anything, I wish we had more local employment," Hawkins said.
He believes he'll hear more of those kind of details in the coming weeks when a presentation is expected to be made to a legislative assembly committee.
Miltenberger stated an agreement is expected to be finalized in mid-September, which will result in more details being released regarding Boreal's bid and the bids that were not successful.
Boreal is a consortium of several companies as well as subsidiaries of some of those companies.
Equity for the P3 project will come from Carillion, a British construction and facilities management company, Hochtief, one of the largest construction companies in Germany, and Toronto-based Bird Capital. That means the three companies will provide the funding under the public-private partnership model.
The P3 model means Boreal will design, build, finance and maintain the hospital.
"The BHP team is excited and looking forward to working collaboratively with (the) GNWT to realize the vision of quality health care in the region with the development of a state-of-the-art health-care facility," Edmund Mahabir, Carillion's executive vice-president of public-private partnerships and construction, stated in a news release.
Bird Construction, Clark Builders Ltd., and Kasian Architects are the design builders.
Clark Builders began in Yellowknife in 1974 but has since moved its headquarters to Edmonton.
The company has recently completed construction of the new 49 Street GNWT office tower which will house the departments of health and transportation. It's also building the new Union of Northern Workers headquarters near city hall.
In 2011, an agreement was signed to give U.S.-based Turner Construction controlling interest in Clark. Turner is the American subsidiary of Hochtief, which is one of the equity providers for the Stanton project.
Kasian is a design company. Its website shows it has designed several medical institutions and has several staff members on its medical team.
Bird Capital is a subsidiary of Bird Construction, which has large-scale construction experience including with medical facilities.
Bird, in partnership with Arctic Canada Construction Ltd., is building the new Hay River health centre.
It recently wrapped up construction of the Restigouche Health Centre in New Brunswick, a $135 million project that has 140 beds.
Bird was recently named the builder of a $104 million arena and events centre in Moncton, N.B.
Carillion Canada, a subsidiary of the British construction company, is listed as being the hospital's service provider. That means it would maintain the hospital.
The size of the building is expected to double to more than 280,000 square feet once the work is complete. Construction is expected to last about five years. The work will include replacing inpatient beds with single inpatient rooms, a new emergency department, new laboratory and extra space for diagnostic imaging and better video conferencing capability to provide medical support to territorial communities.
The Union of Northern Workers has expressed concern with the P3 model regarding whether non-clinical services will be privatized.
Late last year there were 471 UNW workers employed at Stanton, including clinical staff.
