The land near the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital where the new Maskwa Medical Centre will be located. Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

Community

Maskwa Medical Centre construction set to start in the spring

Dec 24, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Officials with the Maskwa Medical Centre plan to start construction in the spring.

There had been plans earlier this year to start this fall.

At its most recent meeting, city council approved having city administration meet with Maskwa officials about waiving building and development fees, estimated at between $275,000 and $300,000.

Maskwa board chair Ken Drysdale says this would be huge.

“Basically, our board and others that have been funding this project since Day 1, outside of the help that everyone knows about from the city and the municipalities, but there’s all that external costs that come with accountants, lawyers and everything else that we’ve been funding personally to get it to this point.”

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“Now that we’re going to construction, that’s quite a large number for us to either loan to the project or pay out of pocket.”

Maskwa officials also asked that council approve having $500,000 from a $10 million loan co-funded by the City and County of Grande Prairie and the MD of Greenview.

Drysdale says this was to help get a start on buying building materials.

“Some of the approvals have gotten backed up a little bit here and we want to get shovel in the ground in the spring.”

“There’s a few items that are longer delivery and we don’t want to put the project or contractor in the position where the materials aren’t showing up on time to keep schedule on construction.”

Drysdale told council they wanted to start buying main beam structures, something that requires a 20 per cent deposit.

Council opted not to make any changes at this time.

Drysdale says they still plan to open the centre in 2026 for training of residency physicians by the University of Alberta.

The building, that will go up close to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital will also include a place to access specialists and a restaurant and daycare for hospital staff.