Vancouver has another flatiron structure, a descriptive name that harks back to some of North America’s earliest and most distinctive buildings.
Vancouver has another flatiron structure, a descriptive name that harks back to some of North America’s earliest and most distinctive buildings.
The buildings draw their name from the old fashioned flat irons that were once heated on kitchen wood stoves. They were solid and triangular in shape and architects drew from them as they designed on triangular lots.
The most famous is New York’s Flatiron Building that rose in 1902 on a triangular shaped lot in the city and still is a landmark today with tourists.
However, it followed Canada in that George Gooderham, known for founding a brewing empire, built Toronto’s Flatiron or Gooderham building in 1891, more than 10 years before New York.
In Vancouver, the Europe Hotel, the first reinforced concrete structure in Canada, was built in 1909 in the flatiron shape to fit onto the triangular lot in Gastown.
Vancouver’s latest landmark, earned ITC Construction a general contractor’s nomination in the $20 million to $50 million category of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association Awards of Excellence.
It is located at the intersection of Pender, Melville and Jervis and overlooks Coal Harbor.
The 28-storey condo and four townhouse structure is located next to The Ritz (by Pinnacle) project under construction.
“That was one of the biggest challenges,” said project manager Ramin Roohi for ITC Construction.
“We had two construction projects going up at the same time. There was a lot of co-ordination (for deliveries) that had to happen. We also had to share the parkade entrance and unfortunately for us, the parkade was on the Ritz property,” he said.
“Everything had to be installed within a short time as we had to make sure that the roads and the sidewalks were kept clean for pedestrians,” he said.
While scheduling deliveries became critical, there were other constraints such as labour and trade skills shortages.
“There was not much you could do,” said Roohi, adding that he kept calling suppliers and was extremely persistent to get the best workers on site.
But, when Roohi came onto the project, (shortly after it had started), he made sure that every contract signed with sub-trades had a detailed schedule attached.
Every sub-trade contractor was responsible for contingency plans if the schedule came off the rails, including overtime to get it back on board.
Schedules were tracked on a daily basis to ensure work was progressing as planned.
Vancouver’s new flatiron was also not an easy structure to build.
While it is a triangular building, it has a small fourth side, but the building actually has a changing floor plate.
“The floor plate changes as you go up the tower. On every floor there is a six-inch addition at one end of the building,” said Roohi, adding its on the short side, giving a bit of twist to the shape of the building.
If one floor measure is out, the windows and doors on the next level are affected.
The building also has an unfinished concrete wall that extends up to the townhouses.
It is a testament to the skills on site.
The wall is extremely smooth and each pour on each level had to tie in smoothly with no defects.
“There were 30 different concrete pours and they all matched — that is extremely difficult to do,” he said.
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