PCL Constructors has announced that two of its Toronto-area healthcare-sector projects have achieved LEED certification.

Design-built by PCL, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH) McCain Complex Care and Recovery Centre and the Crisis and Critical Care Building and Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital both received LEED Certification earlier this month.

“Congratulations to all our clients, consultants and partners on this incredible achievement,” said Marc Pascoli, PCL Toronto’s senior vice president and district manager. “Achieving LEED Certification for these complex projects demonstrate the strength in the collaborative relationships we have built with CAMH, Mackenzie Health and our partners and our commitment to a shared vision of a sustainable future.”

Both the McCain Complex Care and Recovery Centre and the Crisis and Critical Care Building, which earned LEED Gold status, are located on CAMH’s Queen Street frontage in Toronto, making them prominent elements of the mental-health teaching hospital.

Preserving green spaces and environmental stewardship were crucial to CAMH’s ‘Green on Queen’ vision for the new buildings. Key sustainability elements include a 17,000-square-metre green roof and vegetated space; drought-tolerant plants and a high-efficiency irrigation system that reduce potable water consumption for irrigation by 100%; the use of responsibly harvested wood throughout the building, with 98% of all wood materials certified by the Forest Stewardship Council; and a highly efficient building envelope that focuses on minimizing thermal bridging and optimizing solar heat gains.

Meanwhile, PCL reached substantial completion on Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital in August 2020 – at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The facility is the City of Vaughan’s first hospital and Ontario’s first net new hospital in the last 30 years.

Embracing energy efficiency and sustainability in the hospital’s planning, design and construction, Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital achieved LEED Silver certification. Some of its design highlights include: extensive visible green roofs; a construction-waste diversion rate of better than 90%; and the use of low-emitting materials including adhesives, sealants, paints and flooring systems.

“Achieving LEED in health care adds to the complexity of both the design and construction. On the design side, we often wrestle with architecture and energy models to find the right advanced energy systems and varied materials to hit the LEED targets,” said Stephen Montgomery, PCL’s sustainability advisor, mechanical and electrical pursuits manager. “The resulting design contains more, and oftentimes new, components, parts and building techniques that must have complete plans for procurement, quality, commissioning and turnover. The construction planning starts with design and does not end until the hospital is fully operational.”

Both projects were completed on schedule and on budget – despite the COVID-19 pandemic.