Wood Buffalo Housing + Development Opens Stony Mountain Plaza in Fort McMurray

By Joel ScanlonSep 14 2011

Wood Buffalo Housing & Development (WBHDC) has declared the formal opening of the Fort McMurray located Stony Mountain Plaza. The housing development has two four-storey multi-family flats comprising a total of 125 inexpensive housing units.

According to Bryan Lutes, President of WBHDC, the new construction includes geothermal and solar heating facilities to bring down the heating costs of the construction by 70% to 80% and to provide comfort to the residents during winter. The research performed at the University of Alberta confirms that the modular construction technology utilized in the construction has resulted in a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions during the construction phase and the renewable energy technologies included in place of natural gas in the construction will cut down the generation of greenhouse gases for a number of years. Also the modular construction elements in the project have enabled the completion of the construction in a period of 15 months instead of the 24 months required for a conventional construction process. The project utilized the services of Integrated Management & Realty as the project development manager.

The $32 million affordable housing community project received the land required for the construction free in addition to a contribution of $18.75 million from the Alberta Government.