Cowichan District Hospital Replacement

The future Cowichan District Hospital (CDH) is a replacement for the current hospital, which opened for care in 1967. The new, state-of-the-art hospital, opening in 2027, is being built on a greenfield site in North Cowichan, BC, and is set to be more than three times larger than its predecessor. Its vision is to be a more welcoming place of healing and hope, with integrated services to provide better continuum of care, bring services closer to people, and enable seamless transitions between hospital and community-based care settings. The hospital will offer increased capacity in key areas such as emergency, medical imaging, surgery, pediatric, labour and delivery, and mental health and substance use services.

The CDH Replacement project will be the first hospital in Canada to achieve a Zero Carbon Building – Design™ certification, the first fully electric hospital in BC, and is targeting LEED Gold standards – a vast 75% reduction in GHG emissions compared to the current facility. It will also include culturally safe spaces to accommodate traditional healing and other cultural practices, respecting culture as part of high-quality medical care journeys. The hospital will continue to serve the medical community as a training site for medical students and other allied health professionals.

This is the first vertical infrastructure project in BC to adopt an alliance project delivery model. Under this model, the project owner (Island Health and the Province of BC) and non-owner participants share risks and opportunities, operating as a fully integrated team to maximize innovation and collaboration. The CDH Replacement Project Nuts’a’maat Alliance participants include: Island Health, EllisDon, Parkin Architects, and Infrastructure BC.

LMDG is working extensively on the building code, fire protection, and life safety aspects of this project in accordance with the British Columbia Building Code and the British Columbia Fire Code standards. This includes multiple alternative solutions to code compliance, and several negotiations with the Authority Having Jurisdiction to ensure that the project vision is realised without compromising fire protection and life safety. In particular, the alternative solution to allow exposed mass timber components throughout the the project to achieve the desire and vision for eco-friendly materials that support sustainability while bringing the beauty of wood to the indoors. The heart of the facility is the two-storey exposed heavy timber community hall that creates an entrance that promotes social interaction and connection.

Photos courtesy of Island Health