I am confused about this project. At one point, the plan was to demolish the TA building while preserving the foundation so that a tower could be built on it. Now it appears that both the TA and architecture firm buildings are coming down for 2 towers, but potentially 4 total at some point in the future. Where are the first 2 towers going?
 
DougB said:
I am confused about this project. At one point, the plan was to demolish the TA building while preserving the foundation so that a tower could be built on it. Now it appears that both the TA and architecture firm buildings are coming down for 2 towers, but potentially 4 total at some point in the future. Where are the first 2 towers going?
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I think all the above is true. The underground parking and foundation are being preserved. At this point there are a couple of parallel proposals. This one on the west side of the lot and a conversion of the original Transalta tower. They're all connected underground.
 
So are the first two towers being built on the existing foundation? At least one of the renderings looked to have a tower where the architecture office currently stands. That placement would suggest a new foundation for it. One would think the developer would reuse the existing foundation before constructing a new one.
 
DougB said:
So are the first two towers being built on the existing foundation? At least one of the renderings looked to have a tower where the architecture office currently stands. That placement would suggest a new foundation for it. One would think the developer would reuse the existing foundation before constructing a new one.
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I’m thinking they’re going to build a new foundation/parkade below the architect office for the first tower.

I don’t know much about this project but if they’re spending millions on demolition of the big office building, they must also be planning to start construction soon on the other 1-2 towers there plus the office to residential conversion, all using the existing parkade.

They could have just demo’d the architect office if they were just proceeding with one tower. Doesn’t make sense from a cash flow perspective to spend millions on a big office demo and then let those tower sites stay idle for years.
 
Spring2008 said:
I’m thinking they’re going to build a new foundation/parkade below the architect office for the first tower.

I don’t know much about this project but if they’re spending millions on demolition of the big office building, they must also be planning to start construction soon on the other 1-2 towers there plus the office to residential conversion, all using the existing parkade.

They could have just demo’d the architect office if they were just proceeding with one tower. Doesn’t make sense from a cash flow perspective to spend millions on a big office demo and then let those tower sites stay idle for years.
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I don't see them building a separate parkade for the tower in the NW corner. It would be pretty simple to dig out the dirt under the architecture office and cut a hole in the existing parkade to create access. There are two levels of parking that cover nearly the whole block with two entrances, plenty of parking and access for what they want to do.

They could very easily demo the existing office building and build the new residential buildings in phases. See what they did for the Bow parkade south of 6th Avenue. The conversion will be done first, then the building in the NW corner, and so on and so forth. The phased development will mean you start to get income from the conversion and NW corner tower to borrow and fund the rest.
 
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Are two levels of underground parking really enough for what is planned? If I recall correctly, it's two towers with around 1000 units

An empty office building costs money. A weed lot costs less. (and there is that high rise contractor signage up)
 
maestro said:
Are two levels of underground parking really enough for what is planned? If I recall correctly, it's two towers with around 1000 units

An empty office building costs money. A weed lot costs less. (and there is that high rise contractor signage up)
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You're not wrong it likely isn't enough for a full buildout. Earlier drawings showed the existing access points, so I assume they would keep what they had. Could've changed though.
 
I've been thinking about this. A conventional concrete residential tower would require so many modifications to the parking structure that I can't see it being worth saving. A concrete core and steel structure (column free spaces) would require fewer modifications but, would be structurally pricier. Winnipeg's new tallest was built like this. This would be on stable ground which downtown Calgary is not. In my opinion, these towers will require piles, raft slabs or both which the mid rise office block wouldn't have needed.
 
Typically a parkade and the tower above it have completely different structures. The use of the tower above doesn't really drive the layout of the structure below, there is a transfer slab (or beams) somewhere that takes the loads from above and distributes to the structure below. If the elevator core can align, it's easy to work around the rest. If I had to speculate, I'd guess they will likely drop a few new columns into the parkade to take the additional weight of the tower above, then pour a new transfer slab or beams somewhere to tie all of this together. Whether this is cheaper than ripping out and building a new structure I can't speculate...

What I'm curious about is the extent of the existing parkade, is it under the entire block? if so, it could have the space for enough parking to meet bylaw (think it's .65 stalls /unit currently). These being downtown, rates of parking would be smaller as people can just walk to work. Anyone here live in a newer tower downtown? I'm curious as to how full the parkades are. Last building I lived in was about 75% full in the parkade. Visitor parking is always full, residential less so in my experience.
 
Mountain Man said:
Typically a parkade and the tower above it have completely different structures. The use of the tower above doesn't really drive the layout of the structure below, there is a transfer slab (or beams) somewhere that takes the loads from above and distributes to the structure below. If the elevator core can align, it's easy to work around the rest. If I had to speculate, I'd guess they will likely drop a few new columns into the parkade to take the additional weight of the tower above, then pour a new transfer slab or beams somewhere to tie all of this together. Whether this is cheaper than ripping out and building a new structure I can't speculate...

What I'm curious about is the extent of the existing parkade, is it under the entire block? if so, it could have the space for enough parking to meet bylaw (think it's .65 stalls /unit currently). These being downtown, rates of parking would be smaller as people can just walk to work. Anyone here live in a newer tower downtown? I'm curious as to how full the parkades are. Last building I lived in was about 75% full in the parkade. Visitor parking is always full, residential less so in my experience.
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The foundation might be oversized as the TA bunker was originally intended for phased vertical expansion.
 
The parkade takes up a decent portion of the block and is two levels. There are multiple elevator shafts (boxes) and stairways (circles) you can see from the aerial. This is approximately the size of the parkade.
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Mountain Man said:
Typically a parkade and the tower above it have completely different structures. The use of the tower above doesn't really drive the layout of the structure below, there is a transfer slab (or beams) somewhere that takes the loads from above and distributes to the structure below. If the elevator core can align, it's easy to work around the rest. If I had to speculate, I'd guess they will likely drop a few new columns into the parkade to take the additional weight of the tower above, then pour a new transfer slab or beams somewhere to tie all of this together. Whether this is cheaper than ripping out and building a new structure I can't speculate...

What I'm curious about is the extent of the existing parkade, is it under the entire block? if so, it could have the space for enough parking to meet bylaw (think it's .65 stalls /unit currently). These being downtown, rates of parking would be smaller as people can just walk to work. Anyone here live in a newer tower downtown? I'm curious as to how full the parkades are. Last building I lived in was about 75% full in the parkade. Visitor parking is always full, residential so in my experience.
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A structure similar to a commercial tower with a concrete core is arguably a lot more expensive and the column free spaces aren't needed for residential. There's a matter if the existing foundation is built to support two point skyscrapers. A transfer slab between the residential structure and existing parking structure is an option if the foundation is supportive. However, It would have to be at least 6 foot thick. The best spot then would be between the commercial/retail and the residential above ground then at grade or sacrificing a level of parking.
 
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