Former NORCC building--new research site.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: Northwestern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre

A landmark biomedical research facility currently under construction in Thunder Bay recently took another step closer to becoming a reality.

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The future cardiac and cancer research facility on Monroe St. recently completed phase one of a $6.6 million retrofit of the former Northwestern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre's three-floor, 54,000-foot site, thereby staying true to the predicted construction schedule.

The site has seen a great deal of work in recent months, due in no small part to the sheer number of changes needed to alter the building from a care services facility to a cut-ting-edge research centre.

"If you were to walk through the building today, you 'would see a considerable amount of the demolition, which is important and involves reducing the building down to studs in the vast majority of areas," says Michael Power, vice-president of Regional Cancer and Diagnostic Services at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC). "We've also done lead remediation in the radiation environment."

The completion of this phase also involved refurbishing the building's various ventilation, and water and power systems in order to suit the particular needs of a state-of-the-art research environment and to render the site wholly self-reliant for its basic day-to-day requirements.

"The building itself was not standalone, from a life-cycle standpoint," says Power. "It worked off the building systems at Port Arthur General Hospital and when the severance occurred, part of the remediation exercise was to bring these systems up to 21st-century standards, especially because of the pre-clinical imaging lab. We had to make sure that these systems were in place, and the building is capable of functioning independently now."

This completion signals the imminent arrival of up to 42 research professionals and eight scientists, including Dr. Rui Wang, the vice-president of research at Lakehead University. These individuals are expected to make use of the newly completed research and wet labs in the building's third floor.

Phase two, slated to begin in November, involves the development of a specific space in the building's basement for a pre-clinical animal lab, the Lake Superior Centre for...