July 25, 2008

RICHARD GILBERT

A seniors housing complex is being built in Prince George by members of the Prince George Construction Association. This year, the association is celebrating its 50th Anniversary.

Prince George Construction Association celebrates 50 years

Jim Stirling

correspondent

The Prince George Contractors Association became an official entity on Valentine’s Day, 1958.

Twelve charter members used to meet on the third Monday of each month at the MacDonald Hotel, which was the place to be and be seen 50 years ago.

Although the old Mac subsequently went downhill and is long gone – the site’s now occupied by the provincial court building complex downtown – the local construction group meeting there has endured.

It’s been reorganized, renamed, reinvigorated and relocated on several occasions throughout the last five decades, but it has remained the voice and standard bearer for its corner of the construction industry.

George Creuzot was the founding president of the Prince George Contractors Association, said Rosalind Thorn, president of the B.C. Construction Association North, of which the present day Prince George Construction Association is a member. The Creuzot family is well known in the Prince George home building and construction industries.

“Probably our longest serving member is Prince Sheet Metal & Heating Ltd.,” Thorn said.

In 1958, the company was doing business as Prince George Heating & Sheet Metal.

“In those days, contractors were small but they did all kinds of work,” explained Thorn.

More specialized skills and vocations developed as the population and need for construction services grew with the population from the 1956 Census level of 10,593 people.

And grow it certainly did.

It proved that the original dozen association members were either fortunate or prescient in forming their association when they did.

The Pacific Great Eastern Railway – it had several nicknames, with Prince George Eventually being one of the kindest – had finally made it to the central interior in 1956. It became BC Rail and is now run by CN.

The highway through the northern Rockies to Dawson Creek had opened four years earlier, in 1952.

Prince George’s destiny as a transportation, distribution, service and government centre near the geographical heart of British Columbia was falling into place. With the transportation infrastructure in place, Prince George went through a madcap period of growth in the 1960s. It was fueled by the pulp mill building era. Three mills, in short order, made Prince George the fastest growing city in Canada and changed its fortunes forever.

The couple of decades that followed were good for Prince George construction companies. They played catch-up, building homes and schools, shopping malls, recreational and entertainment facilities along with the new support businesses and infrastructure spawned by the pulp mills and the re-consolidated sawmills.

Another milestone in the city’s growth culminated with the 1994 opening of the Prince George campus of the University of Northern British Columbia.

It introduced a different type of resident to town. Steady growth at the hilltop campus and its satellites throughout the region have contributed favourably to the bottom lines of many Prince George contractors.

It’s a trend that continues.

Today, member companies of the Prince George Construction Association report annual volumes of $272 million worth of construction. The PGCA family employs about 2,753 people and generates an annual gross payroll of $102 million. All because, a half century ago, a dozen guys interested in furthering their businesses, and the industry employing them, got together.

They figured earning credibility for their industry would benefit them all. They were right. And that’s the legacy that continues to promote construction in 2008.

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