Northern Health will vacate the Northern Interior Health Unit this week, clearing a key development site for a $1.58-billion expansion that will transform the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia into a substantially larger regional medical campus.

The existing health-unit building at 1444 Edmonton St. will be decommissioned and demolished before construction of the acute-care tower begins in early 2027.

EllisDon is leading construction, while Dialog is handling design. The project is being delivered through an alliance model that brings the companies together with Northern Health, Infrastructure BC, PML Professional Mechanical and Houle Electric in an integrated team.

The 211-bed tower will connect directly to the existing hospital at 1475 Edmonton St. It will replace 102 surgical, cardiac and mental-health beds while adding 109 beds, expanding capacity in some of the hospital’s most constrained departments.

Plans include 102 surgical beds, 12 operating rooms, six cardiac-care beds, 20 cardiac step-down beds, two cardiac catheterization laboratories and expanded mental-health and substance-use units.

A 471-stall parkade has already been completed as part of the broader campus redevelopment. Prince George council also rezoned the 22.5-acre hospital property, increasing permitted site coverage to 100% and allowing buildings up to 100 metres tall.

By B.C. standards, the tower is comparable in capacity to Richmond Hospital’s planned 216-bed pavilion and larger than Burnaby Hospital’s proposed 160-room tower. It is smaller than Royal Columbian Hospital’s new 388-bed tower in New Westminster.

The Prince George tower is scheduled to open in winter 2031.