General Contractor $15 Million to $40 Million – The sustainable construction of the Transportation Management Centre (TMC) on a tight schedule in Coquitlam, B.C. earned VRCA Silver Awards of Excellence for three different companies.
EllisDon Corporation won the award in the general contractors between $15 million to $40 million category.
Dave Hainsworth, EllisDon project manager, called the TMC, which was built to a LEED Gold Standard, “basically a very efficient box, but a pleasant-looking one.”
“The building has six large glulam ‘feature’ beams and columns on the outside, uses an energy-efficient Lutron lighting system, has sunshades on three sides to keep the sun out and reduce heat gain, and bioswales and surface and rooftop riparian landscaping to enhance the environment for native habitat,” Hainsworth said.
“It also has acoustic glass on the windows to reduce traffic noise.”
EllisDon was awarded both the base building contract and the tenant improvement contract.
The cost to complete the TMC base building was $22.5 million and the total construction cost was $33.2 million.
The owner of the TMC is B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI).
The prime consultant on the project was Merrick Architecture – Borowski Sakumoto Fligg Limited.
Graham Fligg, Merrick Architecture principal, said the TMC project has re-purposed a challenging, long and narrow brownfield site.
“It has created not only a flagship government office building, it is also an oasis of sorts in a somewhat bleak environment,” Fligg said.
The TMC has a number of post-disaster recovery features that enable the building to survive a major earthquake with no loss of building function and continue to operate for seven days without external water or power supply. The building has its own substation, and its own fire control, potable water storage and waste storage systems.
He said such features are not common in most new public sector buildings in B.C., because of their expense.
“But in this instance the added costs were justified, because one major tenant, the Regional Transportation Management Centre, is a government agency that is responsible for B.C.’s traffic management in the event of a major disaster,” Fligg said.
The project faced a number of challenges, including the fact that highway and road construction was taking place on all sides of the construction site during the entire project.
“Narrow, sensitive water courses immediately beyond our property lines formed tenuous boundaries between the building site and the highway works,” Fligg said.
“This meant that the only site access was at the narrow western edge of the property on Woolridge, which was impacted by the construction of a new municipal traffic circle late in the schedule.”
Hainsworth said the project’s biggest challenge was a very tight schedule.
Construction of the facility began in June 2011; an operational server room for TReO (which operates the tolls for the Port Mann Bridge) had to be in place by early January 2012; the occupancy permit for the second floor, where TReO is located, was issued in June 2012; and the MOTI and RTMC improvements were completed in May 2013.
Hainsworth said the installation of the glulam columns and beams on the west facade was a tricky operation.
“The size and scale of the task required the use of two cranes, one to hold up a column and the other to lay the roof beams,” he said.
The beams and columns, complete with rainwater leaders, were pre-assembled and delivered to the site for erection.
“Despite the size and awkwardness of the assembly, the glulams were installed without any major problems,” Hainsworth said.
He added that the project was complicated by having to work around a two-month “fish window” (when fish are not spawning) that required the completion of all underground and surface run-off tie-ins in July and August 2011.
The building has three full floors (levels two, three and four), plus lobby and service spaces on the main level and some service in a small, partial fifth level.
The total area of the TMC is 80,000 square feet.
The building contains the offices of Transportation Investment Corporation; TreO; MOTI’s South Coast district and regional staff and the Passenger Transportation Branch.
The new Regional Transportation Management Centre (RTMC), which occupies part of the building, is a centralized management centre for transportation-related incidents in the Lower Mainland.
The TMC is located on Woolridge Street in Coquitlam, with Lougheed Highway on one side of it and Highway One on the other.
Other Silver Award of Excellence winners that worked on the TMC were Structurlam Products Ltd. (Manufacturer and Supplier) and Trotter & Morton Building Technologies Inc. (Mechanical Contractor up to $3 Million).
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