The largest continuous concrete pour for a commercial building foundation in Canada occurred recently as part of the first stage of construction of the $1.2 billion Bow building in Calgary.
High-Rise Construction
The largest continuous concrete pour for a commercial building foundation in Canada occurred recently as part of the first stage of construction of the $1.2 billion Bow building in Calgary.
The Bow is a 58-storey office tower in downtown Calgary, which is currently under construction for EnCana Corporation as a new corporate headquarters.
As a major North American company involved in natural gas production and oilsands development, EnCana has 3,300 employees located at five different sites in the downtown core.
The Bow project, at about two million square feet of space and 775 feet high, will bring these employees together in the largest single-tenant office building in western Canada.
Vancouver-based Ledcor Construction is the construction manager for the Bow project.
The groundbreaking for the tower took place in June 2007.
“We started pouring the concrete foundation on Friday, May 9 at 8 p.m. and finished on Sunday, May 11 at noon, which is a total of 40 hours. This is the largest continuously poured footing of a commercial building in Canada,” said Kerry Gillis, senior vice-president of Ledcor Construction.
“The exact quantity of the pour was 13,778 cubic metres of concrete, which amounts to about 1,300 truckloads. The mixer trucks average about 8-12 metres per load.”
Inland Concrete Ltd. used between 70 and 95 trucks for each cycle to keep the pour rate going.
When they poured in the night less trucks were needed, but during Saturday morning traffic the number of trucks was increased to 95.
“There were 500 people involved in the pour, who worked vibrating and placing concrete, running pumps, driving mixers trucks and operating batch plants. These people worked over the course of three shifts,” said Gillis.
“The raft slab (foundation) used 2,500 tonnes of reinforcing steel and 15,000 pounds of tie wire. It took two months to do the rebar work.”
The slab covers 2,787 square metres and is about three metres thick.
The foundation work, which is estimated to cost about $12 million, marks the start of the erection of the structural steel.
“We poured the raft slab and put in pipe columns that run from the raft slab to the main floor. So the parking lot and the steel structure for the building can be built at the same time,” said Gillis.
“The structural steel for the tower has already started arriving on-site.”
The next major milestone for the construction of the Bow is tied to the Calgary Stampede.
Gillis said they are required to have Sixth Avenue back in operation for the Stampede on July 4.
“We are building a parking structure under Sixth Ave up to the road bed to put the road through,” he said.
Under a new fine structure, the developer would have to pay $14,000 a day for the congestion and inconvenience caused by the road remaining closed to the public. The fine was previously about $1,400 day.
“The City of Calgary has motivated the developer to get the road open with a financial penalty,” said Gillis.
The development manager for the Bow is Matthews Southwest Developments, which is based in Lewisville, Texas.
The company is a full-service development firm that has completed projects in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The Bow is the largest project Matthews Southwest Developments has undertaken.
EnCana was the original owner of The Bow, prior to selling it to H&R Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
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