Activity has slowly started to resume at the site of Medicine Tree Manor and Westwinds Lodge which burned down in December.

The fire destroyed the building just a few months before it was slated to re-open after the 2013 flood.

Lauren Ingalls, CEO of the Foothills Foundation, says while there hasn't been much happening at the site they've been busy.

"We've actually spent the last three months redesigning the lodge," Ingalls says. "We've actually been able to maintain the structural integrity of the existing foundation of the lodge so we'll be using that in re-construction. Right now we just have some stabilization that's going on, we're just cleaning up the site and we anticipate construction should start about the middle of June."

She says they hope to have a roof on the building before Christmas of this year and to have it fully operational by the same time in 2017.

She says they've really been able to reconfigure the space but there will still be 100 units, including eleven two-bedroom suites, 34 studio suites and the rest one-bedroom units.

She says the fire did provide the board with some options.

"First of all the building's going to built to the 2016 building code so from a safety and security perspective that is just incredible for our seniors in terms of the quality of the insulation value and the materials that are being used so it will be much more energy efficient to operate," she says.

Ingalls says the Town of High River has really helped get through the process and she especially wants to thanks area resident who'll have to put up with construction activities for another 18 months.

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