PCL Construction is proud to announce that in advance of the grand opening of the Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) new Preservation Storage Facility, the project has won two industry awards.

The Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships announced on November 10 that the project has won the Gold Award in Infrastructure. This award recognizes projects that demonstrate both the evolution and resiliency of P3 projects in delivering innovative and cost-effective infrastructure for Canadians. 

Additionally, in October it was announced that the project had won the Real Property Institute of Canada’s award for Design Excellence in Building and/or Infrastructure Projects recognizing the integration of innovative designs and technology.

This Preservation Storage Facility, built next to the LAC Preservation Centre which PCL built 25 years ago, in Gatineau, Quebec, is the largest preservation storage facility of its kind in the world equipped with an automated storage and retrieval system.

“It was a great opportunity for the PCL Ottawa team to return to this site more than 25-years after completing the original Preservation Centre,” explains Ottawa’s Vice-President and District Manager, Paul Knowles. “We had staff working on this second phase for LAC who had helped build the first – that’s a pretty incredible feat!

“And simply being able to make the LACs vision for a permanent home for Canadian documentary heritage that is both a reflection of the community surrounding habitat – and designed to include environmental management and erosion control, as well ecological and archeological mitigation measures – come to life was an honour for our team.”

The new Preservation Storage Facility supports the LAC’s 500-year archival preservation objective and will be the permanent home for some of Canada’s most important archival documents. The facility is also the first net-zero carbon building dedicated to archival preservation in the Americas.

PCL Ottawa commenced construction of the Library and Archives Canada’s Preservation Storage Facility in September 2019 and reached substantial completion in June 2022.