Northern Health is making plans to vacate the Northern Interior Health Unit as part of the plan that will lead to the eventual construction of a $1.6 billion hospital acute care tower addition at University Hospital of Northern BC.
The health authority has secured two commercial properties close to the hospital and will take over the second floor of the Hudson’s Bay department store at Parkwood Place as well as the China Cup Buffet restaurant space at the front of the mall.
Those two spaces will be renovated this year and the adult community health services will be relocated from the Northern Interior Health Unit in the spring of 2026.
The China Cup site will house adult specialized services, including addictions treatment and overdose prevention services, with the remainder of services, including the vaccination clinic and other community health services, housed at the Bay site.
Demolition of the Northern Interior Health Unit (east of the hospital at 1444 Edmonton St.) will happen in the summer of 2026, with construction of the new seven-story tower to begin in the fall of 2026._
“Right now we are in procurement for getting the spaces renovated and we’re looking at being fully in there in the spring of 2026,” said Mark Hendricks, Northern Health’s communications lead, capital projects.
“One thing with construction is that timelines can always be affected by so many things, especially with some of the (construction) trade issues, but that shouldn’t really affect us too much on this.
Hendricks said once the renovations are complete at the two Parkwood sites the actual move of the offices will take only a couple of days.
Completion of the new tower, which will include a surgical suite with five operating rooms and 47 new beds, is projected for the winter of 2031, nearly five years after construction begins.
The building will feature a six-bed cardiac care unit to centralize the hospital’s cardiac services and a 20-bed cardiac step-down unit. Once operational, it will provide relief for patients and their families now required to travel to Kelowna, Vancouver or Victoria for intensive cardiac care.
The addition will boost overall hospital capacity for cardiac, mental health and surgical services by 109 beds, from 102 to 211. It will also add 36 treatment beds for UHNBC’s mental health and substance use services, bringing capacity to 83.
Hendricks said Northern Health and designers of the new tower will be gathering input from the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation to plan the building’s aesthetic design, which he said will reflect the region’s Indigenous community.
“We will be working with them on look, finish, feel, how it’s going to be reflective of the local community and the local Indigenous community,” said Hendricks. “At the new hospital in Fort St. James there was some really cool work that went on in that building as far as cultural recognition, cultural incorporation. We actually have Dakelh translations and English on a bunch of way-finding signs throughout the facility.
“One of the things we have been doing at some of our sites is mural paintings on the exteriors outside of our hospitals and we did one in Smithers just recently.”
The acute care tower project includes construction of a new 471-stall parkade currently underway near the hospital on Lethbridge Street next to the BC Cancer Centre for the North.
Northern Health opened two new hospitals in the past three months. In Terrace, the Ksyen Regional Hospital opened Nov. 27, replacing Mills Memorial Hospital. The new Stuart Lake Hospital and Health Centre opened Jan. 14 in Fort St. James, with 18 long-term care and nine acute care beds.
