A multi-million-dollar project to renovate a Kamloops seniors home is now underway.

Interior Health facilities director Lorne Sisley says crews are putting in a new roof at the Ponderosa Lodge, located at 425 Columbia St., which is costing more than half a million dollars and will be done before the end of winter.

Sisley indicates the timeline has been pushed back further than originally thought.

“It would’ve started earlier, but because of the weather they kind of got delayed on that. Just this winter it started.”

Then this spring, the building’s HVAC system will be replaced for about $4 million.

“We knew we had to do to it, but we decided it’s probably right to do it when we’re doing the HVAC. Just because there’s roof-mounted units that we’ll be putting on with the HVAC project. So you might as well get your work redone because it’s really hard to work around the units afterwards.”

The seniors home is 45 years old, and Sisley says better air filtration is needed in the building to deal with smoke from wildfires.

Sisley says this is Interior Health’s largest project in Kamloops behind the expansion to the Royal Inland Hospital. That project is the largest capital investment ever in Kamloops, at $417 million.