In the early morning hours of March 6 a fire ripped through Golden Concrete Ltd at 1019 11th Avenue North. Since then the company has been working hard to rebuild and according to Operations Manager, Paul Ricard, things are moving along swiftly.
“Construction is going good and the concrete plant is 80 per cent done. The offices and shop are about 50 per cent done,” he said.
Currently the plant is still running off generators but as soon as BC Hydro completes the companies assessments the hope is the business will be once again hook onto the power lines.
One important part of the project for Ricard was to use as many local companies as possible in the reconstruction.
“All local people are doing the work. We try to hold everything to our customers,” he said.
Ricard’s family has a long history in Golden so working with local contractors has a special meaning for him.
“I was born and raised in Golden. My mother was born and raised here. It is important to me that we keep everything local,” he said.
Although like any business, Ricard said he wishes things could move faster, he is grateful for the help the company has received along the way.
“The town has been great. Knowing that we had a problem, I cannot not emphasize enough, that the town did very well to assist us. They have helped us out in every way they could,” he said.
Everything at the site has gone up from the same footprint of the previous building.
The major add on will be the concrete plant (which used to be in the building) but is now in a new location which is “bigger and better” according to Ricard.
“The plant is going to be state of the art. Everything is going to be computerized. We are going to have a bigger and better lab,” he added.
He went on to say that as part of the rebuilding plan they have made everything on the site as environmentally friendly as they possibly can.
The hope is the business will be completely up and running by the end of October or early November.
