Keep reading to check out some of our recent milestones.

We are now a Living Wage member

Did you know that RJS is proud to be a member of Living Wage for Families BC?

As a certified Living Wage Employer, we ensure that each employee within our business is paid a living wage.

It’s important to recognize that more and more British Columbians work in low-wage jobs that do not pay enough to live on. A living wage calls on employers to meet a higher standard for both staff and major contractors, to ensure that wages reflect the true costs of living in a community.

As a business, we always look back towards our four core values as a guide. Out of the four, family and accountability are the two that have been a prominent theme that drive our business.

We like to view every person within our company as family and hold ourselves accountable for ensuring that each employee is supported so they are able to support their own families.

RJS expands into the education sector

This year, our team has worked hard to expand our range of projects and grow our business’ portfolio by working in different sectors within BC. We’re proud to say that education is now becoming a prominent piece within our portfolio. 

Do you live in Coquitlam? You might have caught a glimpse of our work while dropping off the kids. Currently, we are in the midst of an exciting expansion project for Panorama Heights elementary school. Once complete, four new additional classrooms will be ready to support the students. 

University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) has been another big part of RJS the past few years as one of our first projects within the education sector. Our recent projects included renovations to the Baker building and adding updates to some of the offices. Heading into the new year, we’ll be at the Abbotsford campus working in their Food and Agriculture Institute. 

Building a brighter future for our communities

As a member of our local communities, we want to hold ourselves accountable by doing our due diligence to help those needing support. We hope to make a positive difference in people’s lives and communities through building safe, affordable, and quality housing. 

Cougar Creek and Jennings Place are the two exciting projects that we have been working on as one of the trusted contractors for BC Housing. Once complete these two sites will provide affordable housing to those within our community. 

In the upcoming months, we’ll begin a new project for BC Housing at the American Hotel. This Downtown Eastside building will provide services to those who have been living in supportive housing and are ready to take the next step toward independent living.

Helping our local small businesses

As you have probably already seen, many businesses have struggled to stay afloat due to COVID-19 in the past year. However, with things slowly opening up, we’ve been hard at work to help local small businesses like Co-Brokr Mortgage, Enterprise, Toro Aluminum, and Belpar prepare for a post-COVID world.

For our Co-Brokr Mortgage site, we are moving through our routine inspections to start off the project. Getting the lay of the land is crucial before starting work on any building. It provides the team with an overview of what and how to tackle the project. In our next few phases, we’ll begin tearing down some of the structural components of the ceiling and eventually turning this space into the perfect office. 

Nothing says a fresh start like the beginning of a demolition.

Our team getaway at the lake

Last but not least, we wanted to take a moment to mention some team updates. At the end of September, our team had the opportunity to go on a fishing trip to Pinantan Lake Resort. 

It was a beautiful weekend with lots of laughs, fishing, and great views! 

We’re grateful to have this opportunity to not only catch the rare sunny weather, but have this time to be together again after so long. As a close knit team, we view ourselves like a family and it was a wonderful experience being able to catch up on each other’s lives. 

In the past year, COVID-19 has made it difficult for team bonding due to social distancing and limited indoor capacities. However, as things slowly open up, we hope to bring back more of our annual fishing trips to celebrate our team and all their hard work.

What’s next for RJS?

When one door closes, another opens. 

Our business is constantly expanding and growing as we take on new challenges. This year, we  wanted to hold ourselves accountable by helping our local community and this was reflected in all our projects. 

We’re already looking toward the future and are excited to see what 2022 has to offer.

Want to keep up to date with the projects mentioned in our blog? Give our social media a follow on our Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram. 

When BC opened up again to activity this summer, we were already on our way to completing some big goals for RJS. This blog will take you through our BC construction projects we did in the summer, our plans for fall, and how we commit to being completely COVID-19 safe on site. 

In our last blog we listed the sites finishing up in the spring, such as:

• Tenant Improvement for Aevitas Waste Management in Maple Ridge
• Cougar Creek’s BC Housing Project in Surrey
• And University of the Fraser Valley Trades and Technology Department

The new projects we started this summer were:

• Thirst First Coffee Solutions in Surrey
• Modu-loc Fence Rentals in Port Coquitlam 
• Gateway Pet Memorial in Surrey
• And Enterprise Car Rental in Tsawwassen Mills 

Clearing through the red tape

This summer, we did face some lag time on completion dates as safety protocols and restrictions due to COVID-19 created delays on permits and contract procedures. This wasn’t a complete surprise as many businesses have had to go through the same thing and we’re all just grateful to be working! 

Our ThirstFirst site was paused for construction during the months of July and August as we waited on city approval with Surrey. In any case, we wanted to keep things running smoothly for our clients in between permits, so we made the ThirstFirst garage fully functional for use. While it still needed some paint and finishing touches, the main thing was that ThirstFirst remained busy during the lag time and that was the most important thing to RJS. 

Our BC construction projects for the fall

Fall is when construction really revs up before the rain and winter season begins. People come back from their vacations and get to work on our current projects as well as a few new ones starting! 

Gateway Pet Crematory and Memorial in Surrey

This unique project has sparked a lot of buzz on our social media. We all love pets, and we want to make sure our fur members of the family are treated with respect when they pass on. 

In our last update, we had just started tendering the project. Now we’ve finished its roofing, improving the structure, and creating the most important piece to a crematorium, the cremation stacks. This will be completed as we go into the fall. 

École Panorama Heights Elementary School in Coquitlam 

A school we are excited about is expanding Panorama Heights Elementary in Coquitlam. With a large number of elementary age students in the neighbourhood, the school has exceeded its capacity. The new addition of four classrooms will increase the school’s capacity from 390 students to 480, adding 90 new student spaces. 

Latimer Lake Storm Infrastructure in Surrey

This is an interesting one for us as we haven’t done outside work such as parks and natural spots in a while. Latimer Lake is a gorgeous spot many Surreyites love. Protecting this area from erosion is of utmost importance so that the community can continue to enjoy this green space for years to come. RJS has been tasked with installing storm infrastructure in Latimer Lake to curb the eroding effects of the tough weather we receive in the coming winter months. Storm drains, hardier paths, and flood water management will be added to make sure that Latimer Lake can survive through the generations. 

New Wave, Better Practices 

When COVID-19 first hit in the spring, we were quick to take action to ensure our sites remained safe and didn’t have to close. We followed all protocols from the Canadian Construction Association and the Government of BC in regards to COVID safety. Since spring, masks have been mandatory on site, we have created sanitation and handwashing stations, and we have limited the amount of people who can be on site at a time. 

As cases go up in BC and around the world, we are now preparing for a new flu season and a possible second wave. We know that this time, however, we have our experiences to fall back on. This time we are more than ready to ensure our staff are safe on site and our projects are completed in a timely fashion. We’ve grown a lot in 2020, and it’s our values of Honesty, Accountability, Respect, and Family-First that have helped pull us through this strange year. 

Want to keep up to date with the projects mentioned in our blog? Give our social media a follow on our Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  

Now that summer is in full swing, BC construction companies are getting ready for a busy summer season. At this time, we have a number of projects we will be working on for the next few months. We’re, without a doubt, excited to share with you what’s coming down the pipeline.

That being said, this year has been a unique and challenging one for many. We had to delay a number of projects as the world fell into a COVID-19 freeze. Thankfully, construction in BC is considered essential work, and that allowed us to continue on many existing sites. However, it wasn’t business as usual, and to remain accountable to our staff and community, we carefully implemented the safety protocols of the Canadian Construction Association and the Government of BC. Overall, we’re proud to say that with the precautions we put in place, not a single staff or contractor on RJS was infected with the coronavirus. And we remain firm with sanitization and social distancing guidelines in order to keep it that way. 

Even with hurdles to leap over, this year we’ve broken ground with new construction projects happening around BC’s lower mainland.

In our last blog about our plans for 2020, we talked about construction on a number of buildings that would help the community expand on educational services, co-op housing and waste management treatment facilities. We are proud to say some of these are completed, including:

• Aevitas Waste Management Site in Maple Ridge 
• Trades and Technology Department of the University of the Fraser Valley
• Culinary Arts Department of the University of the Fraser Valley
• Criminology Department of the University of the Fraser Valley
• Enterprise car rental YVR
• Belpar loading dock

Now, coming up this summer, we have five more projects all being done in and around the city of Surrey. We’re definitely excited to assist in the growth and prosperity of our beloved community. Due to the fact that many of us on our team live and work in Surrey, and we know how much is offered to families here. We want to help keep the city vibrant with new work opportunities and new services and resources, which is why we’re so passionate about building in new innovative and sustainable measures. 

Thirstfirst Coffee Solutions in Surrey

We couldn’t start our list of summer projects without a little dose of caffeine.

Thirstfirst is a locally-roasted coffee wholesaler that’s proudly BC made. We began the tendering process of this project in late March and early April. We started with our plans for the location and put scaffolding up in May. We’re looking forward to breaking ground and setting up a roasting facility, right here in Surrey! 

This project is bringing in a lot of talents from local BC construction workers, contractors, and designers. We have Century Mechanical helping us with our machinery and we’ve included a local interior designer, Cassie Bowman Interior Design, to polish the finishing touches once the rough edges are sanded down. 

We keep updates of our projects during our tendering and construction process found on our Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Watch how this project unfolds over the next few months. 

Gateway Pet Memorial in Surrey

Pet lovers will understand how important pets are to the family. It’s a huge loss in companionship when we lose our furry friends. Family-first is one of our values at RJS. Similarly, the pets we bring into our homes definitely become part of our family fabric we create.

Therefore, that’s why it’s meaningful to build a place for pet owners to honour the loss of their loved ones and give them a final resting place. We’re meeting up with the city of Surrey to begin our tendering stage of building Gateway Pet Memorial in Surrey and updates on our social media will be coming soon.  

Toro Aluminum in Coquitlam 

Toro Aluminum is a window and wall supplier for high-rise condominiums, office buildings, and hotels, across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In January, we began tendering their project of building them their newly renovated office space in Port Coquitlam. Now we’re ready to actually break ground on this project for the summer. 

To help with the drawings of the renovation plan, we’re partnering with Igel Architecture Ltd, a Vancouver-based architecture firm. 

Enterprise Car Rental in Tsawwassen Mills

If you’ve ever been to the Tsawwassen ferries, then you know how busy it can get. We’re trying to help commuters by building an Enterprise Car Rental in the Tsawwassen Mills Mall. This is a big project that we started in early June. We’ve gutted the interior of the site to make room for a full-scale renovation. We’ve managed to install plumbing in the first week of June, all with the help of PriceWise Plumbing and Mechanical. This project is going to be exciting and dynamic as it requires lots of moving parts to work, without a doubt, we’re stoked to get to be a part of it. 

Modu-Loc Office in Port Coquitlam

Modu-Loc provides efficient and effective fencing for companies anywhere in the lower mainland of BC. Many BC construction companies depend on Modu-Loc to make sure that their sites remain safe and secure when it’s not being used. Additionally, if you’ve kept up with us in the past, then you’ll know we’ve worked with Modu-Loc fence rental plenty of times. What better way to pay it forward than to help them with their own office space?

The past few months have been busy on the Modu-loc construction site. In May we installed windows thanks to Oasis Window. Now we are working on completing the structural columns and beams as well as working on finishing up electrical by end of week. 

Midway in June and there’s more to do

We’re at the midpoint of the year and there’s a lot to reflect on. What we’ve realized is that completion of our goals is not a 100-meter sprint, but rather a relay. We organize work for many small businesses and contractors in BC’s construction industry as part of a broader community of subcontractors and tradespeople.  Without everyone working in sync and passing the baton forward, we couldn’t have even made it to the half-way point of this year. For that, we thank everyone involved.  

We still have 5 more projects to add to our roster this year. BC Construction is booming now and in six months from now, we’ll have more to look back on and learn from.  More importantly, we’ll know we worked hard to make this year a successful one, even with the restrictions and uncertainties.

Want to know more about our upcoming projects? Follow us on our Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram.