April 16, 2010

KILMER BROWNFIELD MANAGEMENT LIMITED

Only some of the limestone facades at the former W.C. Wood plant in Guelph was worth saving.

FEATURE | Demolition/Environmental Engineering

Kilmer Brownfield aims to preserve history of Guelph, Ontario manufacturing plant

DAN O’REILLY

correspondent

A nine-acre industrial site in Guelph, Ontario which dates back to the 1830s, will be given a new life as a mixed use development.

The focus now is on completing the demolition of the sprawling W. C. Wood manufacturing plant so the transformation can begin.

Priestly Demolition is demolishing approximately 300,000 square feet, while also preserving about 45,000 square feet of the complex’s original limestone and brick buildings with remediation developer Kilmer Brownfield Equity Fund.

Those sections front on to the Speed River and are considered to have historic and cultural value, says Guelph city heritage planner Stephen Robinson. The area already demolished which will be eventually remediated was not considered to have historical integrity or significance, because of “the amount of the amount of unsympathetic alteration that had occurred over the years.”

The demolition project has required a considerable amount of patience, persistence and architectural research by Kilmer and its team of consultants which include ERA Architects.

Toronto-based Kilmer is an equity fund developer which purchases and remediates Brownfield properties to be sold as “shovel ready” site to other developers.

Most of those projects are fairly complex and this one is no different, says development manager, Pamela Kraft.

As part of the planning approval process, Kilmer has had to work with preservation groups to ensure the heritage components would be saved, nearby residents concerned about the impact of new development and city officials.

Located in the downtown core just east of the Guelph city hall and adjacent to the Speed River, the complex is comprised of a series of limestone, brick, and steel buildings built in different stages from the 1830s right up to the 1970s. It started as distillery, became a woollen mill in the 1880s and then a foundry in the early 1900s. From 1956 to 2009 it was used by the W. C. Wood Company to produce metal fabricated products. Kilmer purchased the property in early 2010 after it had been shut down.

Not only did each successive owner construct additions, they also modified the previous phases and knocked down other buildings. As a result, many or the earliest heritage components were obscured or hidden altogether, says Kraft.

“It’s like a detective story,” she says in explaining the difficulties the architect had in determining where one phase ended and the next one started.

Next, Priestly Demolition had to carefully sever the structural supports linking the original historically significant buildings from the ones slated for demolition and then stabilize the sections to be saved. Heating, water lines, a sprinkler system, a phone line fire alarm panel and other protective services were then installed. Other work included brick patch work and adding insulation.

“We wanted to make sure the buildings stay safe. It is very important to us. What was inside is now on the outside.”

Still to be decided is the fate of what is known as Buildings 3 and 4.

They were constructed in the early 1900s and are highlighted by a long retaining wall which is founded right into the Speed River, which flows through Wellington County and Waterloo Region.

The wall has been stabilized to prevent collapse, says Kraft.

Substance surveys also had to be conducted to determine the amount of asbestos and PCBs in the buildings, she says.

The demolition itself began last September with a month-long asbestos abatement removal, says John Phillips, Priestly’s vice president of operations.

It took about three months for the structural demolition and then another month to rip up the concrete slab.

“We’re now crushing the concrete and will probably produce about 20,000 tons of Granular B gravel which will be used on site,” says Phillips.

An eight-man crew, two bobcats and three excavators are also involved in the operation, says Phillips, who predicts Priestly will have achieved a 90-per-cent-plus diversion rate from landfill.

The project is slated for completion around the end of May.

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