The University of Ottawa Faculty of Health Sciences building was designed and constructed within 24 months, a point of pride for WSP in Canada (WSP), which was the prime designer on the project.
“It’s a 240,000-square-foot building that brings together all five schools in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University,” says Tom LeRoy, director of mechanical and electrical engineering for WSP in Ottawa and the project manager. WSP worked alongside the builder, PCL Construction. “It’s five stories, located on the banks of the Rideau River on the Lees campus and it’s an amazing project.”
LeRoy admits he could talk about the project forever.
“WSP provided all of the major engineering services — structural, mechanical, electrical, civil, IT and security – and we worked with our partner Architecture49 for the architectural services,” LeRoy says of the $120-million construction project, a budget the team hit with no overages. “We had a contract in hand in the summer of 2021, and the students needed to be in their seats in the fall of 2023, so it was a fast 24 months.”
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a major challenge in terms of trying to do the build while following public health guidelines. The pandemic also caused procurement delays.
“It was hard to get steel, wood, glass and equipment, so we really had to plan ahead,” LeRoy says. “There was also the emergency power generator for the building. We ordered it thinking we had lots of time — it showed up 24 months later, so it came just in time.”
The building is LEED-certified Platinum in terms of its sustainability, making it a first for the University of Ottawa and one of the few such buildings in Ottawa.
“In terms of energy use, we have the best mechanical and electrical systems you can get in the building, and we used energy modeling tools to optimize the size and the type of the systems,” he says. “And the building envelope is best in class to meet the really aggressive thermal energy targets.”
LeRoy says the site was on an industrial rail line decades ago and it hadn’t been cleaned up.
“We removed volumes of contaminated soil and remediated it,” he says. “And then, as one of the smart design options, instead of building a basement we supported the building using structural caissons and then raised or regraded the site and put a clean layer of topsoil. We turned a brownfield site into a healthy, vibrant place that can now support the landscape.”
WSP is a global company with 73,000 employees worldwide and more than 13,000 in Canada. The company also has expertise in health care and LeRoy consulted colleagues across the country, but most of those who worked on the project were Ottawa-based.
For its efforts on this project, WSP won an award of excellence at the 2024 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards, the country’s highest national recognition in engineering.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2025 special “City Building” issue of the Ottawa Business Journal. That publication is available in its digital edition below.
