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PRE-ENGINEERED
PROJECTS
Dept. of Transporation
and Public Works Depot
Slemon Park, Prince
Edward Island
When dealing with the
hectic and fast-paced world of highway transportation,
communication and immediacy are key in running things
smoothly. When MacLean Construction completed work on
Prince County’s new highway depot, that part of the
provincial transportation department’s job got a lot
easier.
The building, located in Summerside’s Slemon Park, is
far from the county’s former headquarters which was much
smaller and in a mostly residential area, said Mike
Berrigan, Prince county’s maintenance supervisor. “This
building’s quite a change for us. It’s good for staff
and good for morale. Everything’s under one roof.”
The highway depot is a pre-engineered steel building
using the
Robertson
Building System
(available in PEI exclusively at MacLean
Construction) meaning the components are made in a
factory, shipped to the site, then assembled by MacLean
Construction, who oversaw the carpentry and labour on
the project. While pre-fabricated buildings are more
economical to use, deadlines for delivery don’t always
go as scheduled, says Foster Millar, the province’s
director of public works and planning, and that can pose
some real challenges for the contractor.
As might be expected, MacLean Construction took all the challenges
in stride and had the depot ready to go for its
November, 2006 opening. The more modern depot now
features administrative offices, a dispatch area,
sections for highway maintenance and traffic, meeting
rooms and a lunch room so crews can all come in off the
road for breaks, something the previous depot didn’t
have.
The building has easy access off the main highway so
crews, which can sometimes number around 30 people,
don’t have to wind through a residential neighborhood
to get there. Mechanics now have an area to repair
school buses, plows and other heavy equipment. MacLean
Construction
was also able to install a new washing bay to clean the
vehicles. “It’s nice and bright, good quality and quite
an improvement,” said Berrigan. “Staff are very pleased
with everyone having their own space in the same
building. One section needs to know what the other one’s
doing.”
Article
written by Results Marketing.
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