There’s a special place tucked inside Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital, where young patients can forget why they are where they are for a while, and just be kids.

It’s called the Saville Family Beach and Enchanted Forest. The large play area, decorated with an outdoor theme, extends from a bright atrium to an outside rooftop at the hospital’s southwest corner. The fully accessible space includes play structures, musical instruments, room for arts and crafts and a full kitchen.

The current play area is the result of a massive expansion and renovation that wrapped up in 2024. Integrating the outdoor area doubles the play space to more than 3,000 square feet and gives kids a chance to get fresh air. PCL was hired to demolish and rebuild the four-storey steel and glass curtain wall, rebuild the existing play area and extend it outdoors.

That large scope of work meant disruption and noise: two things nobody wants in a hospital for children.

“I can't even fathom or imagine how it feels to be in that situation and then deal with that kind of noise and vibrations above your head,” says Damien Corbally, the superintendent on that project. “It's a live health care facility. People aren't choosing to go there. They're there because they have to be there.”

As part of the work, crews had to set up nearly one million pounds of scaffolding. Some of the components were brought in and set up by hand during the least busy times, to minimize disruption to hospital operations. Then, six precast walls weighing tens of thousands of pounds had to be removed and 500 square feet of concrete floor had to be chipped away to make way for new construction. The usual tool — jackhammers — were too loud for the delicate space, so PCL found another way. The crew brought in a specialized tool called a wire saw.

“Our crews cut trenches into the concrete slabs and they were able to drop this wire saw down into the slabs and then the wire saw would work on tension and a roller guide,” says Corbally. “And once you got it going, it would slowly cut and pull across the whole way, down the depth that you had set, so the only noise you had was the machine running water and vacuums.”

“We went that extra mile, reached out and did the legwork, and found alternatives that worked.”

Hospitals are busy, dynamic places. Every day, doctors and nurses are helping patients through an emotionally jarring time. So when construction work is needed at a hospital, it’s vital to do it in a way that doesn’t exacerbate the stress patients and health care workers are already feeling.

“We're in somebody else's house, and what they're doing is paramount. That's mission critical,” says Sohayl Bhatti, a PCL project manager in Edmonton. “When you're building these projects, there's going to be some disruption to the day-to-day operations, but our job is to minimize it as much as possible.  I love these types of projects because you really have a sense of purpose when you're doing them. You're part of something bigger.”

Each project is different, but some of the measures PCL takes to minimize disruption — while protecting patient health, safety and comfort — are the same across multiple sites. Work areas are isolated from the rest of the hospital, negative pressure is created, so dust and other material stays in the construction zone, and whenever possible, work is done during the times that work best for hospital staff. PCL also goes above and beyond when it comes to site cleanliness, and educates its subcontractors to do the same.

“We'll follow exactly what the code says, but we'll go above and beyond what it says, too,” says Bhatti. “We use boot scrubbers and walk-off mats to clean the bottoms of shoes. In some cases, we’ve had vacuums that workers can use on clothing before leaving the construction site, and we set up mirrors so you can look at yourself and make sure you’re clean enough to walk back into the active hospital space.” 

Before construction starts, PCL works with hospital administrators, clinical staff, maintenance workers and a wide variety of consultants, including representatives from provincial health authorities, to create detailed plans for each construction phase. Those plans address how and when workers and construction materials will be moved in and out, what elevators, staircases and hallways will be used, and exactly what happens if something doesn’t go to plan.

Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital is old. In fact, it opened back in 1871 — the first hospital in the Prairie provinces and the oldest hospital still in operation in Western Canada.

It’s also one of the biggest and busiest in the Manitoba capital.  So when upgrades are needed, the work has to take place in crowded areas, with a lot of activity happening all around. That’s what one PCL team is dealing with right now, as the hospital’s emergency department undergoes a massive rebuild.

“We are in an active emergency department, and we step aside and make sure that those people can do their work and do what they need to do,” says Gaby Bokhaut, project manager for PCL.

The overhaul of the hospital’s emergency department started in 2020, with construction beginning in 2022. When complete, the department will be about three times its current size, with a bigger waiting room and triage area, more private rooms, increased ambulance parking, and design elements to reduce congestion and improve staff and patient experiences. 

Phases one and two included major demolition and construction in and around the areas people normally use to enter the emergency department — which had to remain operational 24/7 — so one challenge was maintaining safe, quick access for patients, staff, emergency response teams and the public. PCL built a series of temporary tunnels or corridors through the construction zone, so work could happen without hindering the movement of staff, patients and visitors to and from the emergency department.

“The phasing and sequencing of this work was incredibly complex,” says Kim McCance, senior project manager for Shared Health Manitoba, the province's health authority. “At no time during the construction to date have we had to shut down patient care in the existing E.D. This is an incredible achievement.”

“There was a lot of coordination on where we could keep materials and create access to the site without interrupting the emergency department,” says Bokhaut. “I think being flexible in our planning has been very helpful.”

And the level of difficulty is about to crank up a notch. Phase three starts in September, renovating a space right in the middle of the hospital.

“So that will add some other complexities as we plan out our work and make sure we are maintaining access and that we’re not interrupting the ongoing emergency department functions.”

Sometimes, being a good project partner is as simple as thinking about the people your work is impacting.

When PCL was adding a new building to the Lions Gate Hospital Campus in North Vancouver with 10 connections to existing buildings, project leaders made detailed plans to minimize construction-related noise, vibrations and dust — but there was something else the team knew would affect staff and patients: While building the connections, they had to remove entire sections of the existing building’s facade — and replace them with temporary walls, blocking views of the scenic region. 

“When we created the new wall inside the facility, we added some nice wall graphics that had vignettes of the local surroundings," says Travis Prystai, construction manager for the Lions Gate build. “It was a minor detail, but it went a long way for patients and staff who could look at a wall with pleasing images, as opposed to a plain, temporary wall.”

In the case of St. Boniface Hospital, Bokhaut says PCL’s companywide corps of knowledgeable leaders have provided valuable information. For more than 100 years, the company has been building and renovating hospitals in Canada and the United States.

“I think that what sets us apart is that we're not just our own little team silo on the project, we're really a team throughout the company,” says Bokhaut.  We've had a lot of great, experienced people who have helped educate our project team really well. And I think that's been one of our biggest assets.”

“We have such a wide breadth of geography and we operate in so many different places, but our districts aren't islands,” says Bhatti. “We're good at sharing documents and checking in with our subject matter experts. Within PCL, we have a rigorous culture of knowledge sharing, including PCL's internal College of Construction.”

PCL has also developed specific internal tools, including what the company calls Quest Bulletins, that allow project leaders to share the challenges, solutions and innovations they find in each project, with the entire company. It also happens by project leaders picking up the phone and chatting with colleagues who have done similar projects, knowing that person will be there to provide important insight.

It’s all part of a company culture of taking pride in the quality of builds, and the impact on the people who use the facilities — no matter where they are.