BONNYVILLE – The third and final phase of the Bonnylodge renovations is facing some delays.
The project’s substantial completion date of late October 2019 has come and gone, and workers are still on site tying up loose ends.
“Part of that work that needs to be done is in the lodge,” noted Ray Prevost, vice-chair of the Lakeland Lodge and Housing Foundation.
Due to the provincial orders restricting who’s allowed to go into nursing homes and seniors' lodges, they're not able to get in to finish upgrading the rooms and changing the flooring.
While construction crews are completing aspects on the outside of the building, Prevost hopes that can be done while they wait for the provincial health restrictions to be lifted.
“I suspect it will delay it for some time, especially if this keeps going on until the end of May like I keep hearing. But, we can do work on the other parts and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he added.
According to Chris Vining, chair of the Lakeland Lodge and Housing Foundation, they’re aiming to have the project completed by the fall.
“We’re really hoping to get it done this year,” he expressed. “I think there’s so many question marks right now, especially where we’re at with the whole pandemic outbreak, things are just changing so much.”
The Bonnylodge project officially broke ground for phase one in 2012. That portion saw 22 lodge beds and 30 compartments added, and the east side of the building had an additional 30 apartments added during the second phase.
The final phase saw shovels in the ground in May 2019, which will add 46 rooms to the lodge bringing the total number of units up to 120.
The expansion is funded by the provincial government, with phase three alone budgeted to ring in around $13-million.
“We’ve had some construction delays because it’s an add on project. There’s always little things that are going to pop up,” detailed Vining. “It just seems with all these projects, we always seem to run into delays. It just depends on the timing or subcontractors or that sort of thing.”
Vining stressed “everyone’s just trying to do their best with all the things that are going on.”
He added, “It’s just such a crazy situation that we’re trying to get through right now. Even with our operations of the lodge itself beyond construction, everyone’s just having to extend themselves so far and changing things so much for this whole new reality.”
