News
PCL Constructors to build new Paul Myers Tower at Lions Gate Hospital
The Ministry of Health announced today that PCL Constructors West Coast has been selected to build the new Paul Myers Tower at Lions Gate Hospital (LGH). Site preparation work has begun, with construction to start this summer and an anticipated opening in fall 2024.
“The VCH Coastal leadership team is thrilled that construction is getting underway on the new Paul Myers Tower," said Sean Parr, Interim Vice-President, Coastal Community of Care. “Many people have worked very hard to get to this point. It is exciting to know that, in just a few short years, we will be welcoming patients from Coastal communities into this incredible new building, where they will receive top-notch care from our staff and medical staff."
Named after the North Shore business person and philanthropist who donated $25 million to the LGH Foundation's $100 million campaign, the Paul Myers Tower is going to be one of the most technologically advanced health-care facilities in B.C. The new tower will help us meet both present and future needs of a growing and aging population, providing additional operating rooms, larger clinical spaces to better accommodate care teams, and flexible and efficiently designed department and program areas.
The tower's patient-centred design will improve the care experience for patients and their families. With more access to daylight, views of nature, quiet spaces and single-patient rooms, it will be an environment that supports comfort and healing.
Keith McBain, Executive Director for the LGH Redevelopment, adds, “While this new tower is going to significantly benefit patients, it is also going to be a better work environment for our staff and medical staff. We've received a lot of input and feedback in how to make this building work well for the people who work in it, and I think people are going to be very happy with the final result."
LGH serves the North Shore as well as communities along the Sea-to-Sky corridor, Sunshine Coast, Powell River, Bella Bella and Bella Coola on the Central Coast, and surrounding Indigenous communities. The new tower will be home to a telehealth centre that will enable virtual visits between patients and clients in Coastal's rural and remote communities and health-care professionals. It will also have a primary care centre so people without a family doctor or nurse practitioner can have faster access to comprehensive primary care services.
PCL has completed many projects in B.C.'s health-care realm including Vancouver General Hospital's recent Operating Room (OR) Renewal and Interior Health's Interior Heart and Surgical Centre. Earlier this year, it was announced that PCL will also be the design-builder for the new St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver's False Creek Flats.
The project budget of $310 million is cost-shared between the Province, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. Planning for Phase 4 of the LGH Redevelopment project will now get underway, which includes revitalization of the current acute facility and the spaces that will be vacated when the occupants move to the new Paul Myers Tower.