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General Construction Updates

You Need A Thneed said:
Re the future conversion ability:

Turning Parking structures into living areas in the future is marketing, nothing more. Turning was intended to work for parking, into living space, is a huge pain in the ass.

Parking spaces have sloped floors, living spaces have flat floors. It’s hard to correct that issue in the future. Also, the structural loading requirements for parking areas are lower than what they need to be for many living areas. So to do this, they have to intentionally overbuild the structure for a future use that’s never going to be used, because it doesn’t make sense to convert. Wasting money is all that is.
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You'd have to have a design different from today's parkade, but would you be overbuilding it by a significant amount? You'd have to increase the ceiling height, but maybe by what?...two feet? Floors would be sloped, but maybe if they are designed a head of time to be changed at a later date, it can make a conversion easy to do.
 
Beazley66 said:
Be interesting to see what the floor to floor is. looks to be about 4.5m...crazy.
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So they're already looking at having high ceilings ahead of time. Maybe the idea is to convert to a loft type unit? It would make sense as many lofts used to be warehouses and factories, which are more akin to a parkade.
 
You'd need to do something to enable you to install drainage for bathrooms anyway; building a raised flat floor on top of the sloped parking slab with space for plumbing underneath kills both of those birds with one stone.
 
It just sounds all really expensive vs building a precast garage that can be demolished (maybe even dissembled for reuse elsewhere) and replaced with housing. Wouldn't toxins leach into the concrete after a decade or two of use? The concrete can be easily encapsulated but, I wouldn't want to live there.

There you go. Page 15. Can be dissembled and used elsewhere.
http://www.sustainableprecast.ca/downloads/Sustainable_Practices_Parking_Structures.pdf
 
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Beazley66 said:
Be interesting to see what the floor to floor is. looks to be about 4.5m...crazy.
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Interesting. The floor height in the Guardian parkade is probably close to that height. They have a number of rooms and usages built into the parkade, including a gym, and a maker space.

I would think the biggest issue with converting to a living unit would be the slope. if you can deal with the issue by building a raised floor (as suggested by ByeByeBaby) it would seem doable.
 
Just another municipality wasting tax payers money on far flung green ideas when there are more economic solutions to address the decline in car usage in expanding urban areas.
 
Without seeing more of the design and the costs there's no way to know if it's a waste of taxpayers money. If it doubles the cost of a regular parkade....then it needs a hard look. if it's less than 25% extra I think it's worth a look. Much of this depends on the design and how a future conversion would work.
 
It's not worth the effort for even one dime more for the simple reason that this site can support a lot more than 6 storeys in the future. There will always be a demand for parking elsewhere in the city. Just move the garage there when it's no longer of need here. It doesn't have the same coolness as adaptive reuse but, hey, I'm a practical type.
 
maestro said:
It just sounds all really expensive vs building a precast garage that can be demolished (maybe even dissembled for reuse elsewhere) and replaced with housing. Wouldn't toxins leach into the concrete after a decade or two of use? The concrete can be easily encapsulated but, I wouldn't want to live there.

There you go. Page 15. Can be dissembled and used elsewhere.
http://www.sustainableprecast.ca/downloads/Sustainable_Practices_Parking_Structures.pdf
Click to expand...

I wonder about that myself. I like the look of it, and I like the idea of having it as multi-use to start off with. I'm skeptical of the whole disassemble and re-use concept. I'd rather see a regular parkade built with the idea of another use later on, but a use more befitting to a big concrete building like shop space or art studios....maybe temporary art galleries.
 
I have to agree some what that there is a bit of contradiction in the idea of a new parking garage at that location. I mean, the CMLC, on the one hand has even gone to the extent of encouraging developments in the East Village with no parking at all. As an imminent project, it seems a bit superfluous. On the other hand, I would agree with Surreal that we would benefit from knowing a little more about the design, and it's flexibility. Maestro is also correct in that the site can support more than 6 storeys. I remember some through the roof FAR propositions for those lands some years back.
 
Interesting info from the Platform media release https://www.platformcalgary.com/

Good looking numbers, but I can't help but wonder how this is going to be done. Some pretty lofty targets.
Our 5-year economic resiliency plan:
2,000 high-quality, lucrative jobs created
600 start-ups founded
$4 billion revenue generated
$200 million investment capital attracted
$10 billion in new company valuation
10,000 Calgarians educated and inspired
9,000 monthly active Platform participants
 
Just to note that the parkade was designed by Kasian and 5468796 Architects from Winnipeg. 5468796 worked on the Crossroads garden shed near Fort Calgary and I just wanted to say how impressed I am by their work. Really stellar work from a Canadian firm and glad to see the CLMC engaging with architects that are a little more daring than the norm.
 
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