Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the project team completed this 1.2-million-sq-ft health care facility in Ontario, Canada, on time and on budget. There also were no lost-time injuries in more than 3 million worker-hours. The building, completed in November 2020, is the first new hospital to be constructed in the province in more than 30 years, according to the contractor and a Mackenzie Health official. The 11-story facility aims to help address the health care needs of Vaughan, a city of about 306,000 north of Toronto. The hospital has up to 350 beds and the capacity to expand to about 550. Thanks to COVID-protection steps, including a specially built, portable pre-screening structure, there were no outbreaks on the site, the contractor says.

In a change from the original plan, the hospital opened in February 2021 to be part of Ontario’s response to COVID-19. The new facility treated 514 COVID patients who were transferred from other hospitals, representing the largest portion of COVID patients in Ontario.

The project also weathered a 2019 strike of unionized sheet metal workers in Ontario.