Construction is set to start on the Maskwa Medical Centre here in the new future, with groundbreaking on the facility set for next week on the land located next to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital.
Planning for the new medical facility has been three years in the making and when the 100,000-square-foot facility is completed it will reportedly make it easier for those who live in northwestern Alberta to get access to family physicians and medical specialists.
Last May officials released an August 2026 deadline to complete the project and in December when Maskwa chairperson Ken Drysdale made a delegation to Grande Prairie city council requesting they forgive fees that are in the area of $275,000 to $300,000 he said he believed the August 2026 deadline was possible.
At the time Dysdale told mygrandeprairienow.com, “Our board and others have been funding this project since day one, outside of the help that everyone knows about from the city and the municipalities, but there’s all [those] external costs that come with accountants, lawyers, and everything else that we’ve been funding personally to get it to this point.”
He added, “Now that we’re going to construction, that’s quite a large number for us to have to either loan to the project or pay out of pocket.”
At the time he said the board would like any funds raised to go directly into the facility or to enhance education and research the facility can offer down the road.
The groundbreaking is scheduled to go from 11 a.m. until 12 p.m. on Tuesday, May 20th, with the itinerary including a land acknowledgment and community blessing, guest speakers and ceremonial groundbreaking.
