Steinbach Animal Rescue facing delays, building won’t be ready until April

Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue (SAAR) is now hoping for their building to be operational in April of 2024. 

Previously, SAAR expected the building to be ready by January of 2024, however, with delays from Manitoba Hydro and their tender, Crown Pipeline, work on the rescue has come to a halt.  

They are at the point where they need power and heat installed inside the building to move forward with construction. Additionally, they haven’t been given a date on when Crown Pipeline will set up the power. 

SAAR Vice President Graham Pollock says they have about two months’ worth of work to finish inside of the building. 

“All the drywall that's installed upstairs, it all has to be mudded, taped, and sanded and everything else. And that can't be done till there's heat because it will crack,” he says. “All the water lines and everything has to be brought into the building and hooked up. All the HVAC, like the furnace, the air conditioning, and all that stuff has to be installed, so none of that can be done until there's heat inside.” 

On top of that, they still have to paint and install the flooring. 

Pollock says they were hopeful to have the building ready by end of January initially, as things were going smoothly in terms of the contracting trades. 

“And then now all of a sudden, boom. We've been held up for well over a month now.” 

He explains that if Crown Pipeline completes the work by the end of January, which he’s hoping will happen, the building should be in operation by early April. 

Pollock says it all really depends on Hydro and Crown Pipeline. 

“If they're not in at the end of the month, then all of a sudden now we're into February, then we're probably looking at towards the end of April, so everything gets pushed back.” 

He mentions that on a happier note, they received a tremendous response to their call for volunteers. 

“We probably have enough volunteers at this point to certainly start our process and see how we go. We've probably got about 70 or so people that submitted their names to help us out in a variety of different things, so that'll be nice to see.”