Locating a new three-building munitions storage facility next to existing range areas has improved both safety and logistics at Land Force Atlantic Area Training Centre Aldershot (LFAA TC), in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.
"The new site replaces an old bunker that had outlived its usefulness, with a blast safety zone that infringed on some of the Centre's activities," explains Robert Estey, DCC Team Leader, Construction Services at 14 Wing Greenwood.
DCC provided contract management services for the $1.36 million project, which features a storage building that receives deliveries, a transit building with nine compartments for individual units to pick up their supplies, and a forklift storage shed. Each structure had a different fit-for-purpose construction technique, from stick frame to cast-in-place heavy wall construction to pre-cast panel construction.
Completed in November 2018, the fenced compound sits near the Training Centre's 600-metre grenade ranges, where it no longer impacts the Centre's other facilities and functions.
"The daily challenge was just coordinating the project with the range activities, making sure our Client-Partner's range schedules were not interrupted by the contract work and the contract work was not interrupted by their schedules," notes Estey, who took on the project during a busy workload period for DCC, until it could be handed over to DCC Coordinator, Construction Services Wayne Elliott.
"This was an example of DCC rising to the occasion, making it work for the Client-Partner," says Elliott. "On this project, as on all projects, we brought forth a coordination effort between the general contractor, design consultant, Real Property Operations group and the end users. The result was a project that stayed within budget and was completed on time."