Province targets 86-acre Abbotsford property for new animal health lab

The University of the Fraser Valley’s Abbotsford campus may soon get a very large neighbour.

Last year, the province announced it was planning to build a new plant and animal health centre in the Fraser Valley. The current facility on Angus Campbell Road facility in Abbotsford handles almost all disease monitoring, testing, and analysis for the entire province. The lab was severely damaged in the 2021 flood and although it has since re-opened, the province now wants to build a new, larger facility located somewhere that doesn’t flood every couple of decades.

The 30-year-old lab is one of the province’s largest governmental buildings in the Fraser Valley, occupying a prominent barn-like structure just north of Highway 1.

A new facility would cost tens of millions of dollars to build. The province has yet to announce the location for the new facility, despite saying a business case for the new facility would be complete by the end of 2023. But new online documents indicate the province has settled on a likely site. And while the location has not yet been formally revealed, the documents point to one specific property.

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