‘They get the job done’ PCL Construction celebrates 60 years in Manitoba with name written all over Winnipeg skyline By: Gabrielle Piché Posted: 5:35 PM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025

Similar barriers pepper the outskirts of Portage Place and the former Hudson’s Bay flagship building downtown.

A crane towers over the latter structure. It, like the barriers, touts PCL Construction’s logo.

A quick jaunt down Portage Avenue will lead to the Canada Life Centre, which PCL Construction created in 2003. Further in Winnipeg’s core stands the Richardson Building, Fairmont, True North Square, Manitoba Hydro Place and Canadian Museum for Human Rights — all former PCL Construction projects.

The mammoth company is marking its 60th anniversary in Manitoba. It’s finished more than 2,000 projects in the province.

Kelly Wallace, vice-president and district manager of PCL’s Winnipeg office, sat down with the Free Press for a wide-ranging interview.

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“I think the size of the projects and the complexity — especially when it comes to public infrastructure — that just continues to grow,” Wallace said.

He motioned to glass lining PCL Construction’s boardroom: there were no blinds, but with the touch of a button, the glass darkened and became opaque.

Its home base, 1540 Gamble Pl., is the third office — and largest — the company has moved into in the area. It now counts roughly 160 salaried staff.

With contractors and seasonal hires, the number balloons to some 2,000 people covering, at any one time, around 30 Manitoba projects.

Crews are on site in downtown Winnipeg. They’re finishing hospital work in the St. Boniface neighbourhood and west on the Trans-Canada Highway in Portage la Prairie.

Despite global economic uncertainty, there’s plenty of “good-sized projects” ongoing in the province, Wallace relayed.

“Manitoba is historically steady,” he said. “I think it’s still busy and healthy here.”

He’s expecting the deconstruction of Portage Place’s Edmonton Street atrium to come within weeks. The former shopping mall’s transformation, led by True North Real Estate Development, was announced with a $650 million price tag.

Nationally, more projects are hitting the billion-dollar value range. Manitoba might not be there yet; still, projects are larger and more complex than when Wallace began at PCL 27 years ago, he said.

“In 40 years from now, I’d be surprised if we weren’t celebrating 100 years in Winnipeg.”–Kelly Wallace

Technology integration and environmentally conscious designs have made builds more complicated, Wallace added.

However, artificial intelligence use has increased PCL’s efficiency, he said. The team is using AI in its risk management analysis and site inspections.

“I’ve heard people say AI is not going to take over the world, but the people that know how to use AI effectively will,” Wallace said.

A more recent change for the long-standing company: calls to shop for domestic supplies, prompted by a trade war with the United States and comments about annexing Canada made by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The challenge is, the supply chains are so integrated that it makes it really difficult,” Wallace said. “We’re highlighting the risk, we’re trying to buy local and domestic where we can.”

The current trade war is the latest historical event PCL Construction has weathered. There’s been the COVID-19 pandemic, 2008 financial crisis and — for the overall company — the Great Depression that began in 1929.

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PCL Construction started in Saskatchewan in 1906.

It was called Poole Construction at the time. The family business opened in Edmonton and operated in the Northwest Territories before launching a Winnipeg office in 1965.

It erected the Mall Centre, now known as the Rice Financial building, pre-Winnipeg office. Downtown towers like Lombard Place followed in the later 1960s.

There was a swath of builds for the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and Churchill’s town centre complex in 1974. PCL was tapped for Great-West Life Co.’s headquarters and the Health Sciences Centre in the ‘80s. Deer Lodge Centre and the Norwood Bridge fell under its purview.

“They’ve been relied on by large public and private owners for many years simply because they get the job done,” said Ron Hambley, Winnipeg Construction Association president.

The WCA, which represents around 800 members, relies “heavily” on PCL for expertise, Hambley stated. PCL staffers give a national and global perspective, he added.

PCL Construction has more than 30 offices in Canada, the United States and Australia. It counts CAD$11 billion in annual construction volume and has upwards of 1,500 active projects, per a company briefing.

At least two projects — Portage Place and an incoming clothing store by Mondetta — are commissioned by True North Real Estate Development. The developer has tapped PCL as its primary construction manager for a quarter-century, said Jim Ludlow, TNRED president.

He cited the company’s “depth of experience” as the reason for coming back. “We have just a very, very good working relationship with them that we trust,” Ludlow said.

PCL Construction led renovations in Wawanesa Mutual Insurance’s former office on Broadway before creating the company’s 21-storey headquarters downtown. The major build started in 2021, and was on time “despite a pandemic and some really extreme weather,” president Evan Johnston said.

Ducks Unlimited Canada, another repeat client, tapped PCL to renovate Oak Hammock Marsh in 2023, some 30 years after PCL built the facility.

“It was kind of a nice continuation,” said Nathalie Bays, Oak Hammock Marsh manager of interpretive centre operations.

She’d asked crews to avoid removing a row of trees, unlike construction plans. They agreed and adapted, she said.

“In 40 years from now, I’d be surprised if we weren’t celebrating 100 years in Winnipeg,” Wallace said of PCL.

The company is fully employee-owned. It will hold a private event for staff in the fall, a spokesperson wrote in an email.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com