Thousands of vehicles travel daily from Canada to the United States via the Thousand Islands Border Crossing in Ontario. We kept traffic rolling through – business as usual – while building a new facility for the Canada Border Services Agency.  

Located on a 56-acre site, our phased redevelopment work on the 70,837-square-foot facility included the following:  

• Security checkpoint and inspection lanes;  

• CCTV systems, security and access control systems;  

• Employee vehicle entry gates; 

• Truck scanning and site entry;

• Shipping and receiving area; 

• Upgraded office and meeting space for CBSA staff;  

• Divided areas for commercial and public services; 

• And warehouses and holding cells.  

Our expertise in planning and scheduling in an operational environment was critical to this project’s success. We demolished the original structures in phases so that operations could continue as we built the new facility.  

With so many vehicles traveling daily across the border it was important for us to find opportunities to work around the crowds. The project team worked closely with stakeholders to analyze high-usage times at the vehicle inspection booths. The data gathered helped the team plan the demolition and build booths during the slower traffic season resulting in new inspection booths ready in time for peak season, creating better border traffic flow.  

The timing around the inspection booth construction, in additional to other schedule modifications, enabled us to deliver this massive project to the client almost two months ahead of schedule.  

The project team crushed it on cost savings, too. The innovative idea to bring in a rock crusher to turn excavated rock into granular backfill reduced costs on material transport and saved the client close to $180,000.