view from the terrase from a Penthouse EcoCondo

Progress on the project is now moving ahead strongly.

Most of the windows have been installed, the brickwork and concrete work is complete. The fibre cement panels that make up the rest of the facade will be installed in the coming weeks.

Most of the interior partitions have been installed and much of the plumbing rough-in finished.  All of the radiant heating has been installed, and the fan coil units in each suite that provide air conditioning are in process.  

The elevator is waiting in crates in the basement and the geothermal heat pumps are now on site.  We expect to complete the roof by July and then, with the building dry, we’ll move quickly to completion, installing the gyprock, flooring, electrical and lastly, the cabinetry.

windows and doors now installed in many suites.

amazing volume of commercial space along bank street

A lot of interior work continues on the site. The basement floor slab is now complete, and the rough-in for the plumbing has been completed through floors 1, 2, and 3.  The concrete has also been poured on these floors.

The elevator has arrived, and is currently being stored in the basement.

Aside from the beginnings of the construction of 5th floor, you can now notice, from the street, that windows are beginning to be installed on the building.

radiant in floor piping, before concrete is poured.

So despite being the most snowy winter Ottawa has experienced in years, the building continues construction.

So far, we are built up to the 4th floor. The radiant piping has been laid and floors have been poured at each level. Concrete sheer walls as well as the elevator shaft have been been poured up to the fifth storey.

In the coming weeks, window install will begin, giving the building the appearance of something a touch more habitable than the giant yellow box that it is currently.

geothermal manifold in the basement of the building.

view from 3rd storey

Interior stairwell in Garden EcoHome

Balcony off the 3rd storey

Work continues at the corner of Bank St. And Wilton Crescent despite the erratic winter weather.

We are now nearly complete the walls of the 3rd floor.  

Radiant heat piping has been installed on 1st, 2nd floors, and concrete has now been poured on the 1st and 2nd floor slabs. 

The elevator shaft and concrete shear wall are formed all the way up to the 5th floor, and concrete will be poured shortly for these. 

The piping that links all of the geothermal wells has been brought to the mechanical room- and the basement will soon be prepared for the floor to be poured.

elevator shaft - at the 5th storey!

Work resumed after a brief break over the holidays - the crew has already faced a few snow storms and a spring-like thaw during the first few weeks of the new year.

The floor for the 3rd storey is currently being installed, and the concrete will soon be poured along the first and second floors.

corner of Bank St. and Wilton Cres. commercial space

(snow removal crew)

The winter season seems to have fallen upon us early this year, and while there are a few mounds of snow piling up on the corner of Bank and Wilton, this is hardly as noticeable as the walls of EcoCité on the Canal. As you may have noticed, if you've had a chance to pass by the site recently, the first few levels are being installed with remarkable ease. Yesterday, the whole floor for the second level was installed and we are expecting the walls for the second level to be done in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, underground trenches are being dug in order to connect all the geothermal wells to the central manifold (see well to left).

There will be a break in construction over the holidays, but the goal is to have the third level floor installed by mid-January.

This week, a few images...

The elevator shaft, steadily growing higher.

this bit of slab is the future home of the rear yard gardens... (we can almost see it now, thanks Photoshop!)

First load of walls and floors being shipped to the site.

In the coming week we are going to finish pouring the concrete for the large at-grade slab, which will signal the near completion of the underground work. Shortly thereafter, we are going to be laying the pipes that pool the geothermal wells into the mechanical room under the garage ramp. Then the parking garage floor will be poured. Finally, a few concrete walls and the steel columns are to be put in place to support the heavily fenestrated south end of the building.

In order to prepare for the arrival of the floor and wall panels, the surface slab will be precision leveled with grouting. Once the panels start arriving in the coming weeks, they will be installed sequentially, with walls and then floors being installed, followed by the laying of piping for the radiant heating, and then pouring of the concrete floors. It will be interesting to watch.

The extensive work on the concrete substructure continues. The elevator shaft has been poured, as well as all of the interior walls in the basement and about 70% of the columns. The parking ramp has been poured, this incorporating the radiant heating system right in it to ensure that the ramp stays de-iced and safe in the winter while also providing the heating required to keep the parking garage above freezing.

There are some clever features to save energy at the garage level: the ventilation system operates on a CO2 sensor so that the garage is ventilated only when actually required, and the lighting will stay on ‘emergency level’ lighting until someone enters the garage, at which time the full lighting will turn on by sensor. 

Formwork for the ground floor slab was also started last week, and is working its way across the site from north to south. Meanwhile, work continues on the fabrication of the superstructure at the NewGen plant. We expect to have all of the concrete complete by October 9th, in time for our panelized superstructure to start arriving, ready to be erected. 

While work continues on the underground on the site in Ottawa, the building's structure is being fabricated in factory.

One third of the structure will be completed over the next week. We thought you might like to see a few images of this part of the construction. All the images in this series are floor panels.

The building is rising from the earth.

Here are the technical details:  the footings of the building were formed and the concrete poured. These footings are distributing the load of the entire building on the soil. 

The re-enforcing steel for the walls was subsequently erected and currently the form work is being installed which will frame all of the below-grade structure (i.e. below street level), including the elevator pit, mechanical room, water and electrical rooms and parking areas.

The concrete for the north and east basement walls has now been poured, the pouring of the remaining below grade walls will continue through to the end of next week. When the basement is done, the work will begin on the ground floor slab. This ground floor slab will support the light gauge steel structure which is currently being fabricated in the NewGen Building Systems plant.

Last week, meanwhile, the sewer, storm water, and water connections were made, on Wilton Crescent.

We have just about finished excavation and at the end of the week, concrete form work begins as the contractor mobilizes activities.  This means that supplies will be deposited all over the site in preparation for the formwork. Wood frames are to be built with steel reinforcements – this all to hold the molten concrete (thus the term, formwork). Then the framing is removed. Kathryn asked if you could come by to sign your names in the wet concrete, but alas, no, because that concrete will be covered over.  There aren’t any pictures this week, because as you can guess, until the men are down there hammering in the pit, the action is happening mainly behind the scenes.

As mentioned in our previous update of June 5th, we had to pause until we received the go ahead from the City of Ottawa. We returned to the site part way through last week (week #7) to complete the piling and begin the excavation.  The crews are presently excavating carefully around the many geothermal well s on the site. We are delighted to include to the left some recent photographs of the excavation machines working hard at the site.  

We are pleased with the progress, and look forward to the beginning of pouring the concrete very soon, within the next two weeks.

We had a productive week of work last week.  The piling moved ahead of schedule and they completed about 80% of the piling.  Also long awaited, Hydro Ottawa showed up to remove the overhead lines and hydro pole at the corner of Wilton and Bank. This complements work done last fall and this spring to relocate traffic signal lines, and gas lines along Wilton Crescent.

Work will pause this week, as the City of Ottawa Infrastructure department has not yet finished reviewing the exact location of piles compared to their underground infrastructure, so they will not allow us to put the piles in on Wilton Crescent.  I should explain that on Wilton the building actually extends underground into city property, meaning that the city gets very peculiar around this area.

This building on city property was done to allow adequate dimensions for the underground parking, while avoiding the high water table on the site.

Michael Assal, president of Taplen Construction informs me that we remain on schedule even with the pause waiting for the city, as the piling was ahead of schedule, and the foundation contractor has a fixed start date.

There was little activity during last week. As we indicated in the previous update, the shoring crews were not able to come back until the 22nd; however, near the end of the week, the general contractor, Taplen Construction, did have people on the site getting prepared for the work to come in this week.

This week the shoring commenced; a crane was brought to the site and set up for use in the piling. Yesterday the piling began. 

Last Wednesday the site was leveled, four loads of material were removed, and locations of the existing utility lines were marked.

The piling was to begin last week, but the City Infrastructure Department unexpectedly demanded that the detailed shoring drawings be circulated for City approval, even though the City’s building permit office has already reviewed them and issued the building permit. So this has meant that the piling company needed to move on to another site while we wait for the City; thus, there won't be that much more activity until the piling begins, now re-scheduled for the 22nd.

One other small item:  we have asked that signage on the site be removed to prepare for the hoarding that will be erected and for the new banners we’ll be putting up.

Shortly after the completion of the drilling for the Geothermal wells, Christopher Sweetnam- Holmes gave a brief educational tour to 20-30 people.

We invited the public to see the wells before they before buried underneath the building forever. The wells are actually pretty small but those who visited with us seemed really eager to learn about how the system works.

We started drilling the 14 geothermal wells needed to supply heat for EcoCité on the Canal.

It takes one day to drill each 500-foot well.

To learn about geothermal energy and how it works, please visit the Canadian GeoExchange Coalition website.

Recently, long-awaited site work began on our EcoCité on the Canal project.

The building that previously occupied the site, Ottawa’s Villa Deli, was demolished to make room for the new multi-use Eco-building.

Any valuable and/or reusable materials in the building had previously been removed from the building, and all remaining materials will be sorted off site for recycling where possible.