One of the largest construction projects in the County of Renfrew`s history is currently underway, bringing unprecedented economic activity and job creation and cementing the region as a hub for development. The twinning of Highway 17 by the government is also fast-tracking the region to increased economic activity as it will ease the journey into and out of the area, literally paving the way for investments and development.
All this activity bodes well for Renfrew County, which is just a short distance east of Ottawa, says Melissa Marquardt, manager of economic development for the County of Renfrew.
“These are long-term projects and they have significant, positive impacts for our local construction industry, as well as across the county,” says Marquardt.
The Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre (ANMRC) is part of the federal government’s strategic $1.3-billion investment in the refurbishment of the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ (CNL) Chalk River facilities.
As for Highway 17, Marquardt explains that it will provide quicker access for urban visitors and people from Ottawa coming into the region as well as for residents who commute to Ottawa for either work or appointments. It will also make the delivery of goods and services a smoother process, especially for materials coming in for CNL’s project.
As the largest employer in the County, CNL is an important partner in terms of the nuclear industry, Marquardt adds. It’s estimated that annual spending on the project will total $120 million and will employ 672 people yearly.
CNL’s Chalk River campus, which spans just under 10,000 acres, has been part of the fabric of the region for over 70 years, so many of the buildings required significant modernization work.
As a result, in 2015 federal crown corporation Atomic Energy Limited Canada switched to a government-owned, contract-operated model for the facilities at the Chalk River Laboratories, a campus that is comparable to a small town, says Steve Innes, deputy vice-president of capital projects with CNL. A lot of the buildings are aging facilities that need to be decommissioned and demolished, but the campus is a flagship facility for nuclear research and supporting the Canadian nuclear industry, he says.
“It’s an incredible place to work. We get to build facilities here and we’re side by side with some of the smartest people in the world in their fields in very unique areas like medical isotopes. We’ve got a rich history of helping the country and the world with the supply of medical isotopes,” he adds.
The project is also a boon for the community, Innes explains, in that there is a mix of contractors that are coming in both nationally and internationally. These contractors use a lot of local workforces and also partner up with some of the local contract companies. “We’re also promoting small indigenous businesses and local vendors to be part of those teams,” Innes says.
The AMRC, the flagship building, will be a 10,000-square-metre facility able to accommodate 240 people. The government has taken an integrated project delivery approach, meaning a consortium of about a dozen contractors are involved.
The project is a highly technical and costly undertaking due to the specialized nature of the build, which will include “hot cell” rooms that are equipped to support radiation examinations on materials that have been in nuclear reactors.“We support all the CANDU reactors, which is extremely important in Ontario as most of the power comes from nuclear, as well as for the Canadian nuclear industry,” Innes says.
New buildings that have already been completed include a Site Entrance Building called the Minwamon Building, which opened in 2020, a Support Facility that is used for maintenance and manufacturing activities which opened in 2021, and the Science Collaboration Centre, which is six storeys and is used to provide central planning and collaboration space for CNL’s growing science and technology programs, which opened in 2023. All were constructed from mass timber from Chibougamau, Quebec.
This article first appeared in the September 2024 special “City Building” issue of the Ottawa Business Journal. That publication is available in its digital edition below:
