THE CHALLENGE
To build a durable parking garage that had to be constructed during the Ottawa region winter months. The Kanata Research Facility required additional parking for their proposed new office tower. The parking garage required development, design, manufacture and installation, under a very tight schedule that ran through the winter months and had to be operational for spring of 2001. Occupancy of the fourth tower was dependent on completion of the new parking garage

THE TRIUMPH
The inclement weather of the winter season did not interfere with the owner's deadline for completion, as all structural elements for this project were manufactured in the precaster's enclosed plant. During the excavation, it was discovered that bedrock was much closer to the surface than originally anticipated. This resulted in not being able to utilize anchor bolts to stabilize the structure during erection. The precasters' in-house design engineering team developed an innovative open concept bracing system that stabilized the structure, keeping the tight schedule on track. A field applied concrete topping was poured simultaneously while the remainder of the structure was installed. All of the aforementioned efforts ensured that the structure met the owner's deadline for occupancy

THE PROJECT
The precast concrete parking structure was designed with four levels, 180,000 sq. ft with 950 parking stalls, three bays wide to accommodate the parking requirements of 4 busy office towers. The external bays were level, with the internal bay ramped to facilitate an efficient traffic flow arrangement. The use of precast column walls for the internal framing of structure provided many openings for a clear view increasing the security features of the clearspan design. The exterior spandrels contained green aggregates, to compliment the glazing of the adjacent office tower.

THE DETAILS
366 Double Tees - 217788 sq. ft.
16 Beams - 620 LF
105 Spandrels - 3855 LF
24 Columns - 1056 LF
64 Column Walls - 1920 LF
16 Shear Walls - 6400 sq. ft.

Architect: Krieg, Gord, Pye & Richards Architects Inc.
Owner: Kanata Research Park Corporation
Project Manager: Marty Koshman, Director of Construction
Precaster: Pre-Con Inc.