Calgary Openings, Closings, and Developments

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm definitely curious to know how they would do that, so please share if you find out. I'm no architect/engineer by any means, but to me it seems like it would need to be a pretty significant undertaking (removing/re-pouring al the floors?).

I’m not sure how they would do it exactly, but I know the outer railings were designed to be converted into patio railings without adaptation and the height levels of each floor (which are higher than standard parkade heights) were done specifically to account for residential/commercial conversion.

There is already 10s of thousands of square footage of office/event space operating on the first two levels and so I don’t imagine it would take much to duplicate it on the levels above.

[Bill Bumface]

The idea of closing Kensington Crescent to cars seems pretty appealing. Lots of places in Europe have solved the giant pedestrian street/no parking issue by just throwing massive underground parkades below the plazas to let the plebs drive down.

People seem to like spending time in these areas, so if you can make them highly accessible with transit (low floor trains can cruise right through a plaza without much damage) and tons of accessible parking, it can work. Just takes tons of $.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Muta

The cool thing is that Platform is designed to be converted entirely to residential if need be; the design is quite unique in that regard. There was a rendering once floating around with it as a converted residential structure; if I can find it I will share it.

Originally Posted by Table 5

This always comes up, but I don't get how this would possible... there's a fairly significant slope across all the levels (because parkade). Who wants to live/work in a building where the floors are uneven?

Originally Posted by Muta

Agreed, but I've spoken with CMLC and the architects, and they say it is ready for conversion. I'm sure there is a solution to this. I can try and find out about the slope issue.

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm definitely curious to know how they would do that, so please share if you find out. I'm no architect/engineer by any means, but to me it seems like it would need to be a pretty significant undertaking (removing/re-pouring al the floors?).

I am a consulting engineer in this industry, and I wondered the same thing: how do you convert a continuously sloping floor slab into anything other than a parkade? At first blush the design seemed idiotic to me.

I know the architects and consulting engineers on that project; when I asked, the explanation I got is that the floor slope is so gradual that it's "acceptable" within the standards of Class B and below office space, or some sort of light industrial usage.

I'm extremely skeptical that it ever gets converted to some other use...

[topfiverecords]

They'd build a sleeper floor over the slab.

[Slava]

Have they built the parkade with all of the HVAC and plumbing that would be required to convert this, or is that all to be installed later when it's needed? I would imagine that is a major expense, like it is for all of the office to residential conversions?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Slava

Have they built the parkade with all of the HVAC and plumbing that would be required to convert this, or is that all to be installed later when it's needed? I would imagine that is a major expense, like it is for all of the office to residential conversions?

It’s an open-air parkade, so literally everything you would need to turn that into residential would need to be added.

The point is not that it would be a cheap/quick conversion, it’s that you can convert it instead of tearing it down and building something else if/when needs change.

[Muta]

Exactly. I would assume a developer could purchase the property in the future and then assume the costs of the conversion (and of course, would then subsequently roll that into the price of the units). Hell, CMLC and City could turn it into affordable housing if they were so bold to do so. Regardless of who develops it, Platform just so happens to be ready for conversion according to building code, so that in of itself can be a very attractive condition to any potential owner. The costs could be however far down that rabbit hole the owner wants to potentially go.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It’s an open-air parkade, so literally everything you would need to turn that into residential would need to be added.

The point is not that it would be a cheap/quick conversion, it’s that you can convert it instead of tearing it down and building something else if/when needs change.

Yeah I guess I've parked in there once or twice and couldn't remember anything different about it. I just wasn't sure if there was something significant about the design that made that any easier to change to residential than any other parkade I've parked in.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Slava

Have they built the parkade with all of the HVAC and plumbing that would be required to convert this, or is that all to be installed later when it's needed? I would imagine that is a major expense, like it is for all of the office to residential conversions?

There's no HVAC and plumbing in place. That would all get fit out later. In that respect that's less of an issue as compared to an office-to-residential conversion, because the office conversion has the added cost of ripping out everything that's there.

The sloping floor slabs just kill this building though. It has so many ridiculous knock-on effects. topfiverecords wrote:

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

They'd build a sleeper floor over the slab.

You can't just build a "sleeper floor": you'd have to build separate subfloors for every suite of occupancy. The extra labour costs would be ludicrous.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by timun

There's no HVAC and plumbing in place. That would all get fit out later. In that respect that's less of an issue as compared to an office-to-residential conversion, because the office conversion has the added cost of ripping out everything that's there.

The sloping floor slabs just kill this building though. It has so many ridiculous knock-on effects. topfiverecords wrote:



You can't just build a "sleeper floor": you'd have to build separate subfloors for every suite of occupancy. The extra labour costs would be ludicrous.

Why would you have to build separate subfloors for every suite?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Why would you have to build separate subfloors for every suite?

If you built one flat sleeper floor across an entire level, you'd probably have like 3' of headroom when you hit the low side.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

If you built one flat sleeper floor across an entire level, you'd probably have like 3' of headroom when you hit the low side.

Platform doesn’t have that kind of slope. It has ramps between levels. The slabs are only pitched for drainage.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by timun

I am a consulting engineer in this industry, and I wondered the same thing: how do you convert a continuously sloping floor slab into anything other than a parkade? At first blush the design seemed idiotic to me.

I know the architects and consulting engineers on that project; when I asked, the explanation I got is that the floor slope is so gradual that it's "acceptable" within the standards of Class B and below office space, or some sort of light industrial usage.

I'm extremely skeptical that it ever gets converted to some other use...

Basically the political class wanted the building to be "convertable" to make it more PC/ESG to build a parkade. You know, because we'll be phasing out automobiles any minute now.

So the engineers involved billed them for extra hours to consider the issue and told them it could be done. But as a practical matter it would almost certainly be more economically efficient to tear it down when replacing it with a new use is the right choice.

[Hack&Lube]

It looks like a dystopian prison where jaundiced, sullen faced inmates in grey, march endlessly around the loop to the visage of Big Brother overseeing them. Armored trains arrive on the parallel tracks every night, unloading the next batch of political prisoners. Steel box cars evoking the memory of Auschwitz spew out a deluge of broken men into the haunting lower levels. Human beings go in, but nothing ever comes out.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It looks like a dystopian prison where jaundiced, sullen faced inmates in grey, march endlessly around the loop to the visage of Big Brother overseeing them. Armored trains arrive on the parallel tracks every night, unloading the next batch of political prisoners. Steel box cars evoking the memory of Auschwitz spew out a deluge of broken men into the haunting lower levels. Human beings go in, but nothing ever comes out.

Yeah I’m not sure comparing a nice parkade and office space to Auschwitz is the move here big guy.

[Locke]

I think we really need to take more care for the disabled, especially people in wheelchairs.

I mean...we can make this fun for them! Like a little corkscrew bit, a sudden drop with a catch at the end, maybe a loop?

[timun]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Platform doesn’t have that kind of slope. It has ramps between levels. The slabs are only pitched for drainage.

Bill Bumface's 3' of headroom is an exaggeration, but you're sorely mistaken here. The building does not have ramps between levels, and the slabs are not pitched just for drainage: the entire thing from the third floor to the top is one long, continuous ramp.

That said, the crux of the problem is what Bill Bumface was getting at: a flat subfloor from one end of the building to the other would create about a metre worth of difference in floor height. It's just wasted void space at that point, it'd be silly. If you didn't want to float every suite's floor independently as I suggested, maybe you do it in chunks, but you're still going to have to step the floor every few units. That creates a significant problem with circulation around each level: you'd be introducing steps in the public corridor, which for egress purposes you can't do.

So you're kind of married to just accepting that the floor is sloped. Without every suite having a levelling subfloor built you'd have to shim eeeeeeeverything. Walls would have to be built with the bottom of every baseplate cut to make the walls plumb, otherwise doors would perpetually swing open or close on themselves. Doing this is just so much more work than is usually necessary...

As mentioned previously there's no HVAC and plumbing, it's all good to be fit out, and to typically make the plumbing work you're going to have wastewater stacks and water risers grouped in chases all over the place, which means lots and lots of holes to be cored through the floor slabs. Not an impossible task, but do you have any idea how incredibly ####ing annoying it is to core holes that aren't perpendicular to the slab? Every single core will need to be offset to make it vertical.

I also seriously wonder about the egress, irrespective of the floor slope. Right now it's a minimal occupancy; with offices or dwelling units, will the two stairwells at the west and east ends be enough? I suspect a couple stairwells will need to be added in the middle, halfway across the building. Not insurmountable, but not "ready to be converted"... And here's the rub:

Originally Posted by bizaro86

... as a practical matter it would almost certainly be more economically efficient to tear it down when replacing it with a new use is the right choice.

For all the trouble this sloped structure presents, you might as well just tear it down and start over.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by timun

For all the trouble this sloped structure presents, you might as well just tear it down and start over.

Yeah, this wasn't a building designed for multiple uses, this was a building designed to be able to say it was designed for multiple uses. Which is fine, because that's a stupid idea anyway.

[Bigtime]

I think Hack you should have gone for an angle that we can build Platform up into a dystopian Calgary version of Peach Trees from Dredd.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by timun

a flat subfloor from one end of the building to the other would create about a metre worth of difference in floor height.

Thanks for backing up my hyperbole with facts. I was actually really curious what the true slope would amount to.