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First Line Centre
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Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I heard the claimed aesbestos problems was CNOOC using it as an excuse to get out of their expensive lease obligations after they abandoned it. Yes there is aesbestos but it is in situ and won't be an issue unless they start demolishing walls and floor.
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From earlier in the thread:
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Originally Posted by Fuzz
I had heard that's kind of a BS excuse CNOOC used to get out of rent there. Was there confirmed asbestos? Last I had heard, it was a pretty shaky excuse.
Ah, here we are:
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The group said, as landlord, it responded to CNOOC’s concerns with extensive testing and a plan to address any problems within legal guidelines – that is, spot abatement where needed.
It said the testing revealed the asbestos fibre concentrations, discovered as part of the fireproofing in the 38-year-old tower, are minute and can be dealt with safely without evacuating the building. CNOOC is using the presence of asbestos as an excuse to bail on a lease that had more than a decade remaining after extensive layoffs that left many floors vacant, the owners charge.
“By the fall of 2017, CNOOC found that its premises were much larger than it needed, and that it remained committed to pay rental rates significantly higher than prevailing market rates. CNOOC set about trying to break its lease,” the owner group said in its statement of defence.
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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...-over-calgary/ |
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Originally Posted by timun
The argument, from the legal decisions I've read (see the latest (2022 ABCA 293) and the sordid history of the last three years...), centres on the premise that the steel structure's spray-applied fireproofing contains asbestos and it posed a danger to the occupants. It is super-common in office buildings that the space above the ceilings is used as a 'plenum' for air to be returned back to the air-handling system (whereas in, say, a healthcare facility air will be ducted back to the air-handler for infection prevention and control reasons), and in the case of the Nexen Building—or rather, "801 Seventh" now—the fireproofing is directly exposed to the plenum and thereby asbestos fibres could be pick up, circulated back into the air-handling system and cause health problems for the occupants.
There's no doubt the fireproofing has asbestos in it, it's just a question of whether it poses a risk to the occupants or not. CNOOC argued it was and used it as the reason to break their lease and move into Brookfield Place. The landlord's counterargument is it's total BS because unless you damage the fireproofing in some way there's no way for the embedded asbestos to be released.
Granted I'm not an asbestos expert but I do know building HVAC systems, and in my experience what CNOOC is arguing is super-flimsy BS. There is no reason for asbestos fibres to be released from the fireproofing unless quite deliberately disturbed, and even on the flimsy assumption that asbestos was released and particles were light enough to be carried away and into the air-handling unit, the filters at the AHU should be MERV 7 or 8: more than sufficient to filter it out anyway.
It's a super-shaky excuse, and CNOOC's legal counsel is being as obstinate as possible about it. |
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Originally Posted by powderjunkie
Thanks for the summary.
It still sounds like a tough one for the actual humans occupying the space...reminds me of oil execs drinking a glass of contaminated water at a press conference - but would they drink it every day?
With that many occupants in a building, several are going to end up with cancer...almost certainly unrelated to the stuff in the ceiling, but what happens to employee morale and willingness to spend 8 hrs a day there?
Absolute risk may be near zero, but perceived risk might be more important?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
Oh it's entirely perception, based on inflammatory and panicked rhetoric. That's essentially what CNOOC's entire legal argument is: the perceived risk is too high for them to continue to occupy the space. The issue is whether or not CNOOC deliberately crafted this narrative in order to plant the seeds for breaking their lease. Up to the courts to decide, but in my opinion from what I've seen, it sure seems like CNOOC fanned the flames of paranoia and fear in order to get out of an expensive lease for far more space than they needed.
In reality, if you've ever set foot in a building built before 1983(ish), you've been surrounded by asbestos. Fireproofing spray, drywall compound, duct mastic, floor tiles: it was used all over the place, and it's not dangerous if you just leave it.
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Originally Posted by Shazam
I thought CNOOC moved so that the tin tower could be renovated, since the hvac in that building sucks gigantic donkey balls, and then when they started tearing things apart they found the asbestos and that's when it all went to poop. The original intent was that cnooc was going to move back in.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
No, CNOOC alleged they 'discovered' the asbestos in 2017, hired consultants to do testing/investigation (as did the landlord), and CNOOC concluded "this space is unfit for our occupancy because it's unsafe" and signed a sublease from Cenovus at the end of 2018. They moved out and stopped paying their rent at Nexen Building in the spring of 2019. There was no intent for them to move back in... (Their lease was signed near the peak of the market in December, 2013, and was for a preposterous 18-year term that expired the end of 2031.)
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This is still in court, and CNOOC keep taking L after L after L.
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