Rights museum build begins April 1

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/02/2009 (5553 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the most talked about construction projects in the city’s history — the $265-million Canadian Museum for Human Rights — will get underway on April 1, project officials said today.

The museum’s chief operating officer, Patrick O’Reilly, told about 120 people attending a Winnipeg Realtors Association breakfast meeting that the first visible sign that work is about to get underway will be evident within the next 10 to 14 days when crews begin installing fencing around The Fork’s area construction site.

Site preparation work will take another 30 days or so, O’Reilly said, with the actual start-up of construction slated for April 1 when the  first foundation pile will be installed.

O’Reilly said work on the 12-storey structure, which he described as “Canada’s most exciting construction project,” should completed in February, 2012.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which was the brainchild of the late Izzy Asper, will be the first national museum built outside the national capital region.

The capital cost of the project is being jointly funded by the three levels of government, which are contributing a total of $160 million, and the private sector.

Asper’s daughter, Gail Asper, national campaign chair of Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, told the meeting that fund-raisers are just $3 million shy of achieving their initial target of $105 million in private sector funding.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca