Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / Pattison Media / Fraser Health has budgeted a little over $7 million in the current 2023-24 budget year for land acquisition and demolition costs for what the health authority says could be the eventual expansion of Chilliwack General Hospital and related health care facilities.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Chilliwack General Hospital

Fraser Health budgets $7.1 million for land acquisition, demo costs to possibly expand Chilliwack Hospital

Dec 19, 2023 | 12:03 PM

CHILLIWACK — Fraser Health has budgeted a little over $7 million for land acquisition and demolition costs for what the health authority says could be the eventual expansion of Chilliwack General Hospital and related health care facilities.

According to a letter dated November 30, 2023 on the Fraser Valley Regional District website, Fraser Health has authorized $37.3 million in capital investments for Fraser East in the 2023-24 budget year, of which $7.1 million has been earmarked for land acquisition and demolition costs related to CGH. Fraser Health is bearing the entire $7.1 million cost and has not asked the Fraser Valley Regional Hospital District or the Fraser Valley Health Care Foundation to fund this budgeted $7.1 million amount.

The Nov. 30 letter from Sharat Chandra, vice president of strategic capital investments and facilities for Fraser Health, states that a land assembly of five lots on Mary Street and School Street adjacent to Chilliwack General Hospital was purchased in the prior budget year. Chandra indicates three additional lots were purchased in the same vicinity in the current budget year.

“This land is required to accommodate potential expansion of CGH and/or related health care facilities and services in the future,” Chandra wrote in his letter to FVRD Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Kinneman. “Some of the lots currently have residential housing units on-site that are no longer occupied and require demolition per City requirements.”

In November 2023, Fraser Valley Today reported that Fraser Health had acquired several properties near Chilliwack General Hospital, with support from the B.C. Ministry of Health, towards the eventual construction of a new long-term care facility in Chilliwack.

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According to a statement from public affairs spokesperson Nick Eagland on Tuesday, Oct. 31, Fraser Health is presently working on a business plan to construct a long-term care facility to ensure the health authority can meet the growing need in the Chilliwack community for this level of care for years to come.

“We expect to submit our business plan to the Ministry of Health in early 2024,” Eagland pointed out. “The plan will include the expected cost of the project and anticipated timeline for completion.”

Eagland says that in September 2023, with the support of the Ministry of Health, Fraser Health acquired multiple properties near Chilliwack General Hospital for this project.

According to documents on the B.C. Bid government website, the properties in question could consist of 8996, 9006, 9020, 9030 and 9040 Mary Street, and 8979, 8999, 9015 and 9049 School Street.

It should be noted that several of these addresses on Mary Street and School Street are abandoned homes with blue fencing around them. One of the addresses in question, 9049 School Street, was the site of a suspicious fire in late October 2023 that attracted 30 firefighters from the Chilliwack Fire Department. The home at 9049 School Street has since been torn down and demolished following a fire.

The combined area of the lots is approximately 7,669.5m² (~1.9 acres).

Further, as per information on the B.C. Bid government website, the exact verbiage of the project stated: “Fraser Health is partnering with the Fraser Valley Regional Hospital District (FVRHD) to build a new two hundred (200) bed long-term care home with up to thirty two (32) client Day Program for Older Adults (DPOA) to replace the ninety (90) bed Bradley Centre which is currently located at the Chilliwack Hospital in Chilliwack, BC. The proposed Project site is currently a developed/brownfield site located in Chilliwack, B.C.”

Bid documents say the project will include support services areas for food services, housekeeping, linen and laundry services, and equipment washing. Common areas include dining rooms, activity areas for programs, staff offices and support areas, outdoor space, and gardens. There are also transportation interfaces such as loading facilities, underground parking for staff, visitors, and oversized parking stalls for ambulances and HandyDART.

The project will have a total building gross area of about 16,802m². The design is based on a small household model comprised of one 13-resident household and one 12- resident household paired together to create one 25-resident neighbourhood. There will be a total of eight (8) neighbourhoods (i.e., 16 households) in the building. Each household is substantively self-sufficient in terms of support space, with minimal support space shared between households, increasing care efficiency and when required, pandemic and infection control resiliency. Each floor also provides floor-shared shared clinical support spaces outside of the household pairs.