The Grandview Children's Centre is the new headquarters for Grandview Kids/The Jerry Coughlan Building, specializing in care and support for children and youth with physical, communication and developmental needs, and their families.

Grandview Kids headquarters - ‘The Jerry Coughlan Building’ - sought to consolidate locations to provide better coordinated care in Durham Region for children and youth with physical, communication and developmental needs.

The 94,744 ft2, 4-storey educational and treatment facility includes centre-wide therapy services, such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech-language pathology, therapeutic recreation, audiology, infant hearing, blind low vision and social work. The building contains a therapy pool area which includes an integrated AV system to create a more relaxing and therapeutic environment. It also offers autism services, a preschool outreach program, school-based rehabilitation services, developmental pediatrics, including specialized medical clinics, and family/caregiver resources and support.

HH Angus provided mechanical and electrical engineering, and design for plumbing, vertical transportation, lighting, audio visual, communications, security, and information communications technology services ‒ with a key design imperative to create sensory-friendly, safe, and comfortable environments for children with diverse needs.

During design, our team and the architect held multiple user meetings by department, including facility leadership. Through rounds of meetings, we continually developed and revisited the design. Ongoing feedback identified risk and risk locations for those using these facilities. This resulted in relocating light switches, thermostats and other activatable devices for certain rooms away from usual locations to avoid tampering or harm to clients, staff or visitors.

The facility is also home to Grandview School, as well as a branch of the Ajax Public Library. As well, the building site features a therapeutic trail that integrates security into the landscaping for added safety while maintaining the appearance of being surrounded by nature.

The project was delivered through the P3 (Design Build Finance) model and won the Award of Merit for Project Development at the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnership’s (CCPPP) 2022 National Awards for Innovation and Excellence in Public-Private Partnerships.