IWC pick up another gong at building awards

It’s the eighth award for the company since 2015.

IWC has picked up its eighth award since 2015 at the Master Builders’ State awards.

THE IWC Health and Wellbeing Complex has received yet another award - bringing the total to eight since 2015.

WK Projects has been named the Master Builders' State Winner of the Best Health Facility up to $20 million Award for its construction of Stage 2 of the complex, which was officially opened in October 2019.

The latest win was announced by Queensland Master Builders on October 23 at an awards ceremony held in a virtual format.

It followed a triple win for WK Projects at the regional level of the awards on August 7.

In 2015, IWC Stage 1 Health & Wellbeing Centre won the award for Community Services Facilities over $5 million in the regional round of the Queensland Master Builders Housing and Construction Awards, and that same year was named the state's Best Commercial Building over $5 million in the Queensland Building Design Awards.

In May 2020, the Aboriginal Historical Screens Project that wraps the streetscape of the complex won the Premier's Award in the 2020 Queensland Reconciliation Awards.

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In addition, in 2016 the IWC Medical Centre within the complex was named National Aboriginal Medical Service of the Year by AGPAL (Australian General Practice Accreditation Ltd).

Wayne Kleidon, owner and Managing Director of WK Projects, was the Construction Manager of the IWC Stage 2 project, which was supported by $7.4 million from the Australian Government's Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF).

Wins in the Master Builders Queensland Housing and Construction Awards are not new to Mr Kleidon, who won the first State-level award at the inaugural event in 1987.

"After the first State award in 1987, we won another in 1992 and this is the third," said Mr Kleidon. .

Mr Kleidon said this year he had been "quietly confident" of gaining a state award because the IWC Stage 2 construction project had a "true quality finish".

"This project is a credit to the architectural design but also the skill and dedication of our trades people and contractors especially given that we were up against some very large building companies in this category," he said.

It was designed by Bundaberg architect Tomas O'Malley, and almost 100 per cent of the trades people and contractors employed on the project were from the area, in line with IWC's commitment to supporting local jobs and building the region's capacity.

"It was wonderful to be able to even watching the awards at home hear our name be called out as the winner knowing that we had not only delivered on what our client needed for this purpose-built community health care facility but that it stood out at a state level," Mr Kleidon said.

IWC General Manager Wayne Mulvany said the awards were well deserved and reflected the quality put into every aspect of the project's construction.

Mr Kleidon is now working with IWC to deliver a purpose-build $2.43 million community centre in Gayndah, North Burnett. IWC has won $980,000 of funding for the construction from the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation.

The North Burnett centre will support Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across the region, and is scheduled for completion in 2021.