Lindsay Construction to build new parkade

A Dartmouth company has won a contract to design and build a parkade as part of the QEII Health Centre redevelopment project.

Lindsay Construction Ltd. will build the parkade that will serve the Halifax Infirmary across the street. It will be located on provincially owned land north of the Museum of Natural History on Summer Street, a news release from Nova Scotia’s Infrastructure Department said Thursday.

The existing parkade on Robie Street will be demolished to make room for an expanded inpatient centre and operating rooms.

The Summer Street parkade will have about 500 parking spaces including the required barrier-free and vehiclecharging stations. As well, a pedway will be built between the new parkade and the Halifax Infirmary across the street.

The cost of the parkade, pedway and burying the power lines on Summer Street is about $29 million, the release said.

Construction is slated to begin next month. A specific end date wasn’t provided in the release but the new parkade will be in place before the Robie Street expansion to replace the parking spots lost with the demolition of the old parkade.

A second larger parkade of about 1,000 spaces will be built at the former CBC Building site on Bell Road.

A parking study conducted for the province indicated 92 per cent of hospital visitors either drive or are driven to the hospital and park on site.

The Summer Street parkade project sparked controversy last year when the Nova Scotia government’s initial plan located the building directly south of the museum. That design would have intruded on the Halifax Common and the Halifax Junior Bengal Lancers equestrian site.

The province backed off that plan after public protests led by the Friends of the Common and HRM Coun. Waye Mason. Council unanimously supported the new plan this spring, the news release noted.

The new plan also includes public open space along Bell Road and Summer Street.

Lindsay’s past projects have included new neonatal units at the IWK Health Centre, the Emera IDEA building at Dalhousie University and the Canadian Coast Guard’s regional headquarters in Saint John, N.B.

The company’s design team for the parkade consists of Walter Fedy Architects, Fathom Studios, SDMM, Smith and Andersen, and BMR Engineering.

The Halifax Infirmary work is part of a $2-billion redevelopment plan for the QEII health complex to replace the Centennial, Victoria General and Dickson buildings. The project also includes a new community outpatient centre in Bayers Lake.

The work will be done under a public-privatepartnership (P3), which has drawn criticism from opposition MLAS and others who say that approach leads to cost overruns and less public transparency.