May 5, 2008

The heart of the transformed Automotive Building will be a 3,000-seat ballroom that can be divided into two separate units.

Canadian National Exhibition’s automotive building gets $47-million makeover

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

When it first opened in 1929, the Automotive Building at Exhibition Place was used as a venue to display the latest car models. In more recent years, the facility hosted “Farm, Food and Fun” events.

Now, the 160,000-square-foot building is being turned into a conference centre.

The redevelopment will convert what is now a ‘bare-bones’ exhibition hall into a state-of-the-art conference and exhibition facility. Architects are NORR Ltd.

“Behind the 1929 Art Deco façade that is so familiar to Torontonians, we are creating a world-class venue that will demonstrate leadership in functionality and sustainability as well as in design excellence,” said Bob Gallant, NORR project executive.

The project is targeted for LEED Silver certification.

“We are almost constructing a new building within an existing facility,” said Kevin McKay, project manager at Vanbots Construction Corp., the general contractor.

Construction is scheduled for completion in May of next year.

The heart of the new facility is a 3,000-seat ballroom that can be subdivided into a 1,500-seat dining room and a 1,500-seat plenary room. On the second floor, as many as 20 conference rooms of varying sizes can be configured for breakout sessions.

To accommodate the ballroom, changes had to be made in the existing structure, which has a central, two-storey-high space surrounded on all sides by a mezzanine level.

Currently, the roof of this central space is supported by rows of columns at the edge of the mezzanine as well as a row of columns running down the centre of the space. The centre-line row of columns will be eliminated.

NORR determined that the most cost-effective solution was to replace the entire central space roof with a new structure clear-spanning the space.

‘The major challenge on the project is taking off the existing roof structure and then putting in this new structure,” McKay said.

Ground was broken on the redevelopment in mid-April.

To create a “powerful arrival experience” upon entering the facility and to develop a strong connection to the second-floor conference rooms, the NORR designers introduced a relatively narrow atrium the full length of the ballroom.

In it, the wall of the ballroom is treated as the major feature, leading the eye up to the second level and providing a strong linkage between the levels. Escalators to the second floor are contained within the atrium and clerestory lighting permits a flood of natural light into the space.

The conference centre reportedly will be the first such LEED Silver facility in Canada.

Water-use reduction will be among its environmentally conscious features. Just south of the building, an underground 12,000-gallon cistern will store rainwater collected from the building roof and redirect it for use in water closets.

Rainwater harvesting lessens the amount of storm water runoff that contributes to erosion, flooding and waterway contamination.

“Environmental responsibility is a driving force for this project and rainwater harvesting is just one of the many steps we are taking to provide a whole-building approach to sustainability at the conference centre,” Gallant said.

NORR is providing architecture, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering and interior design services. The project team includes LEED consultants Enermodal Engineering Ltd., building code consultants Leber Rubes Inc., and heritage preservation consultant Andre Scheinman.

The total cost of the redevelopment is $46.88 million.

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