October 27, 2011

PCL CONSTRUCTORS CANADA INC.

Window replacement gets underway after-hours at the TD Centre, 66 Wellington St. in Toronto.

FEATURE | General and Trades Contracting

After-hours planning key for Toronto-Dominion Bank office renovation

DAN O’REILLY

correspondent

In the middle of the night when most people are in bed or heading home after an evening on the town, a small contingent of glaziers is doing its bit to revitalize a landmark Toronto office tower.

Each night glazing erector/supplier Oldcastle Building Envelope removes the single-pane windows from a designated floor at 66 Wellington St. and replaces them with double-glazed thermal pane windows. The 16-man crew, which includes two supervisors, begins work at 7 p.m. and finishes at roughly 3 a.m.

Their work is actually just one piece of a major multi-million dollar and multi-phase revitalization of the five-tower TD Centre being carried out for owner Cadillac Fairview by construction manager PCL Constructors Canada Inc. The architect is B+H Architects.

Oldcastle’s crews starting working on the 56-storey building this past August and will be on site until April 2013. It is basically a repeat operation for the subcontractor, which earlier this year completed the reglazing at 77 King St., one of the five TD Centre buildings.

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The lessons learned on that structure have helped streamline operations at 66 Wellington St., says PCL project manager Jason Rupert.

Although some windows on the very top floors have been replaced, PCL is not following a standard top-to-bottom-floor strategy. That’s because it was instructed to concentrate on several vacant floors, which would enable Cadillac Fairview to create new tenant fit-outs. For the most part that has been accomplished and now the focus is on occupied floors, he says.

“But we won’t be replacing any windows on the very high floors during the winter. If the wind is stronger than 40 kilometres an hour it’s not safe.”

Window installation on the occupied floors requires a considerable degree of careful planning and coordination with the tenant so as not to interrupt the working lives of their employees, says Rupert.

About a month and a half before a floor is scheduled for the replacement PCL, officials meet with the tenant representative for a walk around to prepare a block plan and identify potential trouble spots.

Each employee also receives a primer and advice on what they should and shouldn’t do such as leaving loose papers on their desk. “There will be a lot of negative pressure (when the windows are removed).”

The removal/replacement procedure is conducted according to a detailed plan. After the office staff leaves at the end of the day Cadillac Fairview’s information technology department disconnects the computer systems. Then about 5:30 p.m. employees from Paragon Office Installers begin moving the chairs, desks and other furniture to the centre of the floor to create an unencumbered work space for the glaziers.

Moving in a clockwise rotation the Oldcastle crew can insert anywhere from 16 to 20 windows a night depending on the complexity of the floor, says Rupert.

“There are two teams. One teams works from a swing stage, while the other is inside. Once the sealant has been removed and the seams cut the old windows are pushed inside and the new ones installed.” (The discarded panes are sent to a recycling centre.)

After the glaziers are finished for the night the furniture is moved back to its original location by Paragon. Then the floor is cleaned up by a contracted firm. The last detail in the nightly schedule is an inspection by a PCL supervisor to ensure the quality of the work. By 9 a.m. the office employees return to work and hopefully won’t notice anything amiss, says Rupert.

“Our plan is that the tenants won’t even know we were there the night before.”

Apart from their energy-efficiency values, the new windows will actually help the building and the other TD skyscrapers recapture the original design vision of Mies van der Rohe, the design architect. Several years after the towers were built a ‘goldy’ tint was added to the windows and that tint seriously impacted the aesthetic look of the centre, says Tonu Altosaar, senior principal, B+H Architects.

Once the window segment has been completed, a broad range of interior design and mechanical upgrades can proceed similar to what has been accomplished at 77 King St., he says. Those improvements will include the relocation of induction units from the floors to the ceilings to create more space for the tenants.

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