Camp out: Yellowknife hospital work camp no longer needed, says builder

A temporary Yellowknife work camp once touted as a make-or-break factor in the on-time construction of the N.W.T. government's new hospital will not be going up after all, according to a news release issued late Friday afternoon.

The camp, which was intended to be built behind the Yellowknife Fieldhouse, was expected to house up to 150 people working on the $300-million Stanton Territorial Hospital.

It caused a public outcry after residents on Hall Crescent, near its first proposed location in the Kam Lake area, complained the plan was rushed and would disturb their neighbourhood.

The Fieldhouse location was approved as an alternate location in late June, after representatives from Clark Builders, one of the companies building the hospital, told Yellowknife city councillors that the camp needed to be in place by August.

Yellowknife Hotel Association president Jenny Bruce questioned the urgency of the camp this week after no work had been done on the proposed site.

In the Friday release, Clark Builders vice president Dave Brothers says that changes to the landscape of Yellowknife's rental and hotel markets due to "many market and economic factors" meant that it is no longer "in the Design-Builders best interest to develop temporary accomodations."

Brothers says in the release that Bird/Clark Stanton Joint Venture, the group responsible for building the hospital, will rely on local vendors to house the workers needed for the project.

At an earlier city council meeting in May, Brothers told Yellowknife city council "the [hospital] project would probably be devastated" without the camp.

The release stated that the hospital construction is on schedule. Construction is expected to be complete by December 2018.