FEATURE
Visiting Rooms for
the NRHA and a
Clinic for Brandon
“A ton of communication” ensured
that all the teams were moving in
the same direction at all times
By Barb Feldman
When CW2 was chosen by Manitoba’s Northern Regional Health Authority
(NRHA) to be the general contractor for a project to build visiting rooms
in four personal care homes, the Brandon-based company was ready to
meet the challenge. The 400- to 500-square-foot spaces, designed to be
constructed within existing care homes by Winnipeg’s LM Architects, allow residents to
meet safely with family and friends while reducing the risk of infection and potential spread
of COVID-19.
Adjusting schedules to meet the needs of all four projects – one each in The Pas and
Thompson, and two in Flin Flon – while dealing with competing timelines “was like air traffic
control,” said Tanya LaBuick, a partner and chief operating officer at CW2. Complicating
matters further were the additional COVID-19 restrictions, which meant navigating how
many tradespeople could be on site to maintain proper physical distancing while meeting
project milestones.
Three to four CW2 employees worked on each crew, with “subcontractors on top of that,
staged depending on how the builds were going,” and the trades “scheduled to leapfrog from
site to site,” said LaBuick.
Jordie McTavish, a project manager with CW2, was in charge of keeping everything
moving, LaBuick says.
Two levels of supervision and management happened simultaneously across all four
sites, LaBuick says, with foremen running each crew and either CW2’s president Bart Curtis
or Jon Geddert, another CW2 project manager, regularly visiting each site to oversee progress
and answer questions.
“We were lucky and had a really good winter,” LaBuick said. “There were only a few
times when travel conditions were a bit risky for our teams, but everybody was really committed
to getting this done and the visitation rooms up and ready for people to be able to
see their families.”
Jobsites and COVID-19 safety
At the end of October 2020, when construction started, northern communities had fewer
cases and stiffer COVID-19 protocols in place than Brandon, McTavish says. Travel to all
four sites required approval and was limited to essential workers who were screened for
COVID-19 before entering the construction spaces, sanitized their hands when entering
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CW2
The completed visiting room at
Flin Flon Personal Care Home
features welded seam flooring and
mechanical chase with access panels
to enclose the air exchange units
The completed visiting room
at Northern Spirit Manor in
Thompson, Man., with new
welded seam flooring, cleanroom
ceiling tiles and cleanable
wall surfaces
BUILDING RURAL MANITOBA | 25