September 30, 2011

TOWN OF CALEDON

Regionally sourced and recycled material with an emphasis on uncoated concrete is being used in the construction of Caledon’s new two-storey Ontario Provincial Police building.

FEATURE | Concrete/Masonry

Maple Reinders breaks ground on Ontario Provincial Police Building in Caledon

PETER KENTER

correspondent

The Town of Caledon is growing, along with its need for infrastructure and support services.

The town broke ground in July on a new headquarters for the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) division that serves the community. The two-storey, 23,650-square-foot facility, located in Caledon East on Innis Lake Road, is being constructed using regionally sourced material and recycled material with an emphasis on uncoated concrete.

Caledon is known as Canada’s safest community, and the decision to expand the facility reflects a commitment to keeping the community safe as population expands. With a current population of about 66,000, the town is projected to grow to more than 84,000 residents in 10 years.

“The OPP detachment has been trying to make do with the existing building located on the same property, but they outgrew it years ago,” says Sherry Brake, project manager with the Town of Caledon. “The new building is going to mean a lot to them.”

The facility will include offices, cells, a four-bay garage, meeting rooms, locker rooms, a community board room and other service space. The new facility concentrates three existing OPP detachments and 112 staff members under one roof, except for a small satellite office in Bolton. The headquarters was designed to meet the standards of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification.

The building was designed by architectural firm The Ventin Group Ltd. Under a pre-qualification regimen, four contractors were qualified to bid. The contract for the $9-million facility was awarded to Maple Reinders.

As an OPP building, the headquarters was designed to the building standards of the OPP Accommodation Guidelines Version 2.0.

However, the Ontario Building Code (OBC) 2006 stipulates that, as an emergency response facility, the building must be built to the standard of a “post-disaster building” which includes adequate earthquake protection.

Extensive seismic studies were conducted on the site prior to construction. Coffey Geotechnics was engaged by the town to conduct a geotechnical investigation.

“The Caledon East area is in a ‘low earthquake zone’ and as such, it’s unusual to expect that soil conditions would result in a classification requiring earthquake protection,” says Brake. “But the specific site consists of Class D soil, which is more of sandy soil than is usual for the area and doesn’t extend to the rest of the community. We want builders and developers to know that there’s no reason to be uneasy about building in the town of Caledon East.”

The decision to use concrete was based in part on OPP requirements to build the foundation and first floor of the structure of concrete, but also to meet the seismic requirements of the design.

Results of the site survey indicated that the original design required some modification to meet earthquake standards, resulting in considerable additional costs.

“We essentially had to go back and redesign the structure,” says Brake.

Changes included provision of shear walls on the upper floor that align with shear walls on the lower floor, provision of horizontal slip connections at all lower level walls that are not shear walls, and provision of vertical control joints in lower level walls between shear and non-shear portions of continuous walls.

“Additional walls may be included on the lower level to meet the overall stiffness of the upper level to at least 70 per cent of the stiffness of the lower level,” says Brake. “And no wall on the lower level can be more than 30 per cent longer than the corresponding wall on the upper level.”

Brake says the facility should be open for operation by the end of July 2012.

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