Grey County has hired an all-encompassing architect firm for its new Rockwood Terrace long-term care home in Durham at a cost of more than $2.5-million.

During its regular meeting on Friday, Grey County council endorsed a resolution from its Long Term Care Redevelopment Task Force to award a contract for just over $2.5 million to Kasian Architecture Ontario Inc., to provide prime consultant services for the project.

“This award for our prime consultant or architect really does encompass the entirety of the project,” Chief Administrative Officer Kim Wingrove explained Friday.

“The scope of the architect’s services is quite extensive. You have an architect and all the associated services with all the different classes of engineers and specialists.”

Wingrove said choosing the prime consultant is a major step as the county moves towards construction of the new home.

“To have Kasian onboard now will really allow us to get moving on the design and the site planning aspects,” said Wingrove. “Because this is a greenfield property we are moving into in Durham we have all of the site servicing to take care of – roads, water, sewer, natural gas, power. All that has to happen but you need to understand how things will be laid out on the site before you can actually do that work.”

Grey County is required to upgrade its existing Rockwood Terrace long-term care home from a Class C to Class A facility by 2025.

The province has approved an application by the county to redevelop the home’s 100 existing beds and add 28 new beds in a new 128-bed home in Durham.

Preliminary estimates put the build cost of the Rockwood Terrace project at $56.7 million, based on an estimated cost of $400,000 per bed.

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