CALGARY -- The road to building the largest building in Western Canada has been paved.
Calgary's downtown core - usually sleepy on the weekend - was transformed into a buzzing hive of activity Saturday as workers laid the concrete foundations for The Bow, the $1-billion-plus skyscraper being built as the new headquarters for EnCana Corp.
The groundwork for the 58-storey building, which will dwarf both the city's existing office buildings and the iconic Calgary Tower - as well as every other Canadian building west of Toronto - involved the largest continuous pour of concrete in Canadian history, and the third-largest to date worldwide.
"You don't see a lot of buildings like this going up," said Michael Brown, associate vice-president of Texas-based building developer Matthews Southwest. "There's never been a base of a building [in Canada] that's this big and this deep. It's an engineering marvel. It's going to redefine the Calgary skyline," he added.
More than 65 concrete mixers - carrying among them 14,000 cubic metres of concrete, or more than one thousand separate loads - were brought in to carry out the pour, which will provide the base upon which The Bow will stand and which finished late Sunday. More than 500 workers were involved in the construction efforts.
When completed in late 2011, the building, designed by Foster and Partners of Britain, is expected to radically change the image of Calgary, placing the city's architecture firmly upon the international stage.
The building's environmentally friendly features include a lattice-like "diagrid" skin - as seen on the Swiss Re tower in London - as well as a horseshoe shape that will reduce wind resistance and maximize the amount of natural light the building receives. In all, The Bow's green design is expected to save EnCana 30 per cent in operating costs.
In addition, the building is expected to help transform Calgary's troubled downtown. Despite the construction boom in the city - spurred by the oil sands - no new office space has been built east of Calgary's Centre Street in the downtown in more than 25 years.
"This is a very important building for downtown, and a very important symbol of investment," Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier said. "It represents the revitalization of the east part of downtown Calgary ... it's a very strong signal."
© The Globe and Mail
