Stay warm! If you are to believe Wiarton Willie, we’re less than a month away from springtime. Now that’s hard to fathom when we’re breaking daily temperature lows in the neighbourhood of -35 degrees Celsius.

Obviously, the harsh temperatures over the past few weeks have impacted productivity on the site. But we’ll take the good with the bad – the weather prior to the New Year’s was quite cooperative. The construction schedule still shows completion of the superstructure in early May. By then, the interior finishing teams will be going full tilt as we continue to push for late 2015 occupancy.

The forming crews have now poured over 10,000 cubic metres of concrete. While an impressive stat, there is plenty of onsite activity that doesn’t involve pouring concrete. The precast brick panels are now going up around the residential suites on King and Victoria – and they look incredible. Inside the corridors, masons are beginning to place block walls (on milder days) and the steel stud crews continue to frame out suites. All the while, mechanical and electrical crews follow in behind to work on rough-ins. On a normal day, there are now +- 70 total workers on site.

It has been a real pleasure seeing everyone again over the past month as we work through your suite selections. Feedback on the process has been great so far as we near the halfway point. We sincerely hope that you enjoy making your colour choices and that the new selection software has improved the experience.

For the past few months, there have been upwards of 60-70 contractors on site daily with the majority of them focused on formwork and plumbing. To date, roughly 7,500 cubic meters of concrete have been poured. Over the next few weeks the podium itself will be completed and construction of the tower will begin. The tower floors will be built much faster – a floor every six or seven work days is expected. This means that the entire superstructure should be complete by late spring – assuming that the winter months don’t throw us a curveball.

Forming/pouring of the 5th floor shear walls and columns is now complete. While the construction methodology is much of the same as the superstructure goes up, many new trades will be joining the existing contractors over the next few months. For instance, as soon as the roof deck of the podium is completed, windows and roofing will follow shortly thereafter. It really won’t be long before the interior finishes are being completed. In fact, steel studding of the residential units is scheduled for early in the New Year.

Please note, we will be closing the Presentation Centre at 16 Victoria St N and opening a new selection center at 42 Bridgeport Rd E in Waterloo in late November. We look forward to seeing everyone in the New Year!

Over the years, the fund has been used to foster major projects, such as developing facilities to house the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy and the McMaster School of Medicine, creating a new building for the Kitchener market and renovating a former school to accommodate the Wilfrid Laurier University School of Social Work, and to help finance a program to enhance the city’s King Street streetscape, a central corridor.

An impact analysis submitted to the city last year notes there has already been an increase in property values and, so far, nearly 1,600 jobs are linked to the fund’s investments. Major employers, such as Google and Desire2Learn have located downtown, and there are residential projects underway in the city’s core, including City Centre condominiums – a mixed use tower development that will feature more than 350 residential units as well as retail space, public courtyard and public parking.

Over the hoarding it rises! In early July, One Victoria started to creep over the construction fencing and has now progressed to the pouring of the 2nd floor/mezzanine columns and walls. The floor of the 2nd storey residential suites has now been poured and the ground floor retail component is completely defined.

On any given day, there are approximately 40 trade contractors on site with the majority of them focused on the formwork. To date, nearly 5,000 cubic meters of concrete have been poured! Not bad, but a lot more coming. The entire superstructure should be in place by spring of 2015 based on the current schedule.

On the forming front, Dominion Forming Inc. is carrying the load. With approximately 25 – 30 tradesmen on site, they are in charge of setting up forms, facilitating concrete pours, stripping forms, and continuing clean-up on floors below. Bulldog Rebar, a local company that has worked on all of Momentum’s builds, is in charge of laying and tying the rebar.

On the mechanical and electrical front, Fred Kau and O’Connor Electric have won the contracts for One Victoria. During the superstructure phase, these teams only require a couple of tradesmen each. They will ramp up considerably when the building is closed-in and the finishing work begins. Of course, as mentioned in a previous newsletter, Melloul Blamey is in charge of construction management.

We are still on target to start the colour selection process sometime in late 2014 or early 2015. We will be closing the Presentation Centre at 16 Victoria St N and opening a new selection centre at 42 Bridgeport Rd E in Waterloo.

While conditions weren’t ideal, there was a lot of progress made in Jan/Feb/Mar. The shoring is now essentially complete and a number of perimeter and strip footings have been poured. The elevator base is clearly recognizable now.

At the outset of March, we did run into some site issues that slowed things down to a halt. You may have noticed a short period of inactivity, but we are now back up and running. Unfortunately, we had to replace the original forming company with newcomers, Dominion Forming Inc. They are more than capable of picking up where it was left off, but we did endure about two weeks of downtime. In the big picture, this work stoppage can be made up with some better weather throughout the summer and beyond.