After years of on-again, off-again plans for its creation, construction of the new Calgary Cancer Centre has finally begun.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley was in Calgary Friday for the official groundbreaking ceremony.
The centre will integrate patient and family-centred care, education and cancer research into a single facility located at the northeast corner of the Foothills Medical Centre campus.
It will feature 160 inpatient beds, over 100 exam rooms and 12 radiation vaults.
PCL Construction Management Inc. has been selected to construct of the facility, which will feature lots of natural light and a large central courtyard.
The Calgary Cancer Centre will cost $1.4 billion to build and is expected to open to the public in 2023. Work began last month.
Will Morlidge and his four-year-old daughter Virginia were on hand Friday for the event at the new facility. He told Global News he wishes his wife had lived to see the groundbreaking.
“I’m standing in today for my wife Rebecca,” Morlidge said. “I had the honour of being Rebecca’s husband for just over 10 years and sadly Rebecca was overcome by a reoccurrence of her cancer this last August. She lost the battle.”
Morlidge said his wife worked behind the scenes as a volunteer with the Patient and Family Advisory Council — the committee working behind the new centre — a role he has now taken on.
“We have a four-year-old daughter and when the new cancer centre is complete, she will be able to say that daddy helped finish what mommy started.”
— With files from Jenna Freeman