When Hillcrest College in Medicine Hat closed their doors Chinook Village began converting this college campus into a seniors housing complex. The development sits on 8 acres with 343 suites of varying levels of care with over 400,000 square feet of living space. There are 180 Life Lease Suites, 94 Congregate Living suites, and 69 Assisted Living Suites. The final phase of this complex was completed in 2004. Chinook Village is one of the most complete retirement communities in Canada comprehensively addressing all the various levels of seniors housing and care.ARFAI provided master plan designs through to Contract Documentation for all 5 phases of construction. Construction of Chinook Village involved some demolition and over 14,000 square feet of renovations to provide office, retail, dining space and other amenity space. A kitchen renovation was also undertaken to keep up with the growth of the project as the condominium, Life Lease, and Assisted Living suites were developed.Another aspect of the project which was particularly interesting in the context of renovation was the desire of the client to retain an amenity building at the center of the courtyard. Again this resulted in considerable complexity and the amenity building, which was kept primarily for nostalgic reasons, was incorporated into the design.