Husky Travel Centre All New!
By Scott A. Sumner
Thunder Bay Business
The familiar Husky we have seen on Balmoral Street just North of the Harbour Expressway has undergone a dramatic change. After some early hold ups in the spring of 2007 the project went full swing ahead with Manshield NWO Construction completing the extensive work on the 3 acre site.
“ There were a few hold ups on the project. A labour strike occurred and we had some mould and soil contamination issues. All the issues were resolved over the summer time and we were able to get going this fall. It is complete now and Husky has taken over and is stocking up,” noted Peter Belluz, President of Manshield NWO Construction. “Some parking areas were added and a bigger footprint for the building was constructed. We totally renovated all the features on the site, adding new gas tanks and propane facilities.We expanded and enlarged the building from about 2500 square feet to 4500 square feet.There were some older buildings on the property which were torn down.”
The restaurant will have more seats, more room and there are more pumps and gas facilities overall. The facility is aimed at the long distance truck driver. “ It was a challenging project with the contaminated soils we identified when we removed the old tanks. You
have to obey all the ministry rules and regulations of environment. It meant getting rid of the old soils and bringing in new soil. The pumps are separated by diesel for trucks and gas for the car traffic,” said Belluz. “ All local sub trades were local with 25 to 30 involved which is normal for a project like this. It was completely renovated from the basement to the restaurant. New mechanical facilities were put in place. The way the details were worked in today’s ethodology the project will last for along time.”
Husky has their own architect out of Calgary who designed the project. Manshield was in close proximity of the job with their office location right across the street. Tim Lund was the project manager and Jerry Mercier Superintendent along with Dyson Mitchell lead carpenter. Husky
was great to work with and will have local operators according to Belluz. The building is a typical masonry building with steel shelves . It has a lot of piping systems and electrical mechanical which were scrutinized by the Technical Safety and Standards Authority.
Tim Lunn, Project Manager of Manshield was very involved in th project. Our estimator Dave Piner was working on the project until I started with Manshield on June 11th. Overall the project went well after the soil, mould and labour strike of 6 weeks. We used Lakehead Superior Services owned by Trent Grof to do all the petroleum services. Everything was completely new and moved around. It was basically a new site started with new petroleum. We completely reworked and expanded the site. Before this job Lunn looked after 93 stores of CD Plus
across Canada base out of Thunder Bay.
Belluz's company has also been the news lately for other projects ongoing in Thunder Bay. They demolished the old McKellar Hospital recently to make way for a new Shoppers Drug Mart and a 8000 retail development. Shoppers will be located at the corner of Vickers and
Arthur and will face into the development facing the retained Mckellar site. The whole development will face into the development. The city wanted us to keep the building closer to the street and hide the parking to look like a downtown setting, stated Belluz whose company
will partner with a Winnipeg company on ownership of the project.Manshield has also submitted an expression of interest to the City of Thunder Bay with other 3 other partners from Winnipeg for the waterfront development project.
We have a person who specializes in hotel developments , a land planner working with us and a firm interested in developing the condominiums. That is a big development that requires a lot of expertise, knowledge and the financial back up, stated Belluz. We are positive on the city absolutely. Thunder Bay is going through a bit of downturn but I feel the city has a lot of positive things going for it and will be successful in the future. It is a complicated project that needs a lot of expertise to get off the ground.
