Contractor selected for $2-billion Richmond Hospital redevelopment | Daily Hive

Artistic rendering of the new patient care tower, the Yurkovich Family Pavilion, at Richmond Hospital. (Vancouver Coastal Health)

The project to provide Richmond Hospital with a major expansion that is also seismic-safe has reached a major milestone.

Vancouver Coastal Health announced today it has selected Graham Design Builders and HDR Architecture as the the major contractor team for designing and building the new acute-care tower.

This team will be responsible for the second phase of the redevelopment, which is overwhelmingly the largest of the four-phase project.

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Further planning involving the two companies is expected to take one year, with construction on the new Yurkovich Family Pavilion acute-care tower expected to begin in 2026 for completion in 2029.

The first phase undertaken over the last few years involved renovating some of the facilities and performing some site preparation in advance of major construction. The future third phase will revolve around major renovations of existing facilities, while the fourth and last phase reaching completion in 2031 will focus on the demolition of the 1966-built north tower, which is deemed to be highly unsafe.

Existing condition:

Existing condition of Richmond Hospital. (Google Maps)

Future condition:

2022 artistic rendering of the Richmond Hospital redevelopment. (Vancouver Coastal Health)

The north tower is under-sized for the growing needs of the population, at risk of collapse during a modestly powerful earthquake, and currently functioning with largely obsolete and failing building systems. The north tower will be demolished only after the new acute-care tower opens.

The brand new nine-storey acute-care tower will have 359 acute care beds — a net gain of 113 beds from the existing hospital configuration. The emergency department spaces will increase from 62 to 86 beds, the number of operating rooms will grow by three to a total of 11, and there will be additional medical imaging capacity.

In June 2024, the provincial government announced this project’s cost had nearly doubled to $1.959 billion — an increase of about $1.1 billion. When the project’s business case was first created and approved in 2020/2021, the estimated cost was pegged at $861 million. This previous estimate was made just before the sharp inflationary environment that began in 2021/2022.

2022 artistic rendering of the Richmond Hospital redevelopment. (Vancouver Coastal Health)

2022 artistic rendering of the Richmond Hospital redevelopment. (Vancouver Coastal Health)

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