The province noted a year of construction of the Okanaagn Correctional Centre with a media tour on May 21.
(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)
May 23, 2015 - 10:31 AM
PENTICTON - The $200 million Okanagan Correctional Centre has entered it's second year of construction with a completion date in the fall of 2016.
The facility is rapidly taking shape as one of the three cell “pods” nears completion and the prison’s administration building begins to take shape.
More than 375 people have worked on the project in the past year, with $115 million worth of business awarded locally in 13 separate contracts. The prison will be built to LEED Gold certification and when complete will be the largest value project ever undertaken by B.C. Corrections.
PCL Construction Manager Les Krusel told reporters May 21, the 378 cell facility has seen 100,000 man hours of labour take place without a lost time incident. Work has been “continuous and on schedule,” he said.
Parliamentary Secretary for Corrections Laurie Throness expects the correctional centre to open in the fall of 2016. The prison’s warden has been appointed and 800 people have applied for work as one of 240 correctional officers and 60 support positions anticipated. Throness said recruitment will continue over the next two years and can be done on line.
Throness said the institution would give B.C. taxpayers “good value for their money.”
“We’re also going to get a very secure facility that will ensure the people of B.C. are safe. The people who are housed here will remain here until their sentences are done,” he said, adding he had not heard of any concerns locally about the prospect of 500 inmates housed in the area.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015