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The new Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary will be the region’s premier healthcare facility and academic centre providing cancer care services in Southern Alberta. As Alberta’s first major-design build project for the Alberta Government, the Centre is set to open early next year, and is expected to improve health outcomes and spur job creation in the Calgary region. Serving as the bridging consultant, Arup worked closely with the Alberta Ministry of Infrastructure to provide a suite of multidisciplinary services throughout the project including supporting the design-build procurement, design review, compliance management, site monitoring, and contract administration.
The new Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre is a 127,000m2, CAD$1.4bn facility designed to provide leading-edge cancer care to Albertans. The Centre achieved substantial completion in December 2022, when ownership was transferred from the Alberta Ministry of Infrastructure to Alberta Health. In the coming year, medical equipment such as MRIs will be installed and tested, and the facilities will be readied for patient one. The centre will support and deliver an interdisciplinary and integrated care philosophy to improve patient outcomes, which accommodates research, education, and patient- and family-centered care. The facility will include a 1,650-stall underground parkade, roadways, and connections into the existing medical and university research structures.
In the first phases of the project, Arup provided technical, specification writing, and design build advisory services to the Government of Alberta. Our team authored a Statement of Requirements document totalling some 1,200 pages, contributed to the development and implementation of an innovative strategy for design build including a series of collaborative meetings with the RFP proponents, provided responses to RFIs, and drafted addenda. Our team then successfully navigating a design and construction period that took the project through a worldwide pandemic and extensive supply chain delays. In this final phase until opening day, Arup will support the client in post-construction and occupancy activities including close out, annual energy target assessment, warranty administration and seasonal commissioning.
Project Summary
127,000m² clinical and research complex
1,200-pageStatement of Requirements
1.4bnCAD$in construction costs
“Arup is continuing to help Alberta Infrastructure deliver the project on time and on budget. Substantial completion was achieved in November 2022 within one week of the target date, following over five years of design and construction, and the contract price remained within 1% of the original figure. ”
Mike Durtnall Associate Principal
We are also providing full, multidisciplinary bridging consultancy services for the project. Our key services include project management, structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, and geotechnical engineering, as well as information management, transportation, energy, LEED, acoustics, and vertical transportation, and construction scheduling consultancy services.
Through our sub-consultants we are providing architectural, building sciences and site monitoring consultancy services, healthcare planning, design-build procurement advice, payment certification, furniture and equipment consultancy, value management, and document control.
Alberta Infrastructure had little previous experience in the design-build delivery method. With our extensive global experience in design build, Arup was able to provide valuable guidance on best practice, how design build differs from other delivery methods, and the balancing of performance and prescription in the Statement of Requirements.
The project site was occupied by a parking lot adjacent to health and university buildings, and the new facility is integrated into the complex via a pedestrian bridge that meets the clinical requirements of a hospital — the Connector. The achievement of stakeholder consensus for the route and the contact points with existing buildings was a significant project challenge.
During pre-procurement, a potential scope change involving the addition of a proton beam therapy unit required urgent consideration. Through the rapid mobilisation of engineering specialists within Arup, a study on technical implications of this change was conducted that allowed the client to make an informed decision, without disruption to the overall schedule.
