Stantec Tower and SKY Residences

The tallest building in Western Canada, Stantec Tower in Edmonton is part of one of the largest mixed-use projects in Canada. The iconic, 1.3 million square foot, 66-story tower was designed to LEED® Gold requirements.

The 483 units at the premium SKY Residences occupy floors 30 to 66 of the tower. They offer the ultimate in city living with unsurpassed views, upscale finishes and access to world-class amenities. 

At 820 feet tall, Stantec Tower is double the height of the other towers in Edmonton. This grandeur generated engineering challenges that required caisson foundations built to a size that has never been constructed in the local marketplace.

A key component of the project was the two-meter transfer slab, a concrete structure with embedded structural steel located 137 meters above grade. The transfer slab is critical due to the weight of the building and helps stabilize the tower. It is the first above-grade transfer slab constructed in Edmonton.

Preparation for the 34-hour continuous transfer slab pour required 18 months of planning and immense coordination between all the groups involved. Preplanning required engineering of the formwork and re-shore systems within one building floor footprint. The result yielded a structural steel lattice network that transferred the wet concrete load from the 29th floor sky raft through the outrigger truss, core and columns down to the foundation. Traditional shoring would have required 27 floors of re-shore, which would have stopped interior tower construction for the duration of the transfer slab pour and cure. The method implemented resulted in zero interruption to tower’s interior construction. 

With construction extending into winter, permanent and temporary heating was set up on every floor to protect water pipes within the tower from freezing. Overnight the temperatures were so low that there was still a chance a pipe near the exterior of the building could freeze and burst. Due to the size of the site and number of residential suites, monitoring risk points manually would have been an arduous and time-consuming task. To improve efficiency, we installed Job Site Insights™ (JSI™) smart sensors throughout the building to alert the team if any temperature fell below a set threshold. The sensors also alerted the team to humidity levels that could jeopardize the high-end millwork and hardwood in the suites. Using JSI™ brought peace of mind to site personnel and the client, who knew heat and humidity were always monitored. In addition, JSI™ helped save an estimated $370,860 by:

• Reducing gas heater usage by 46% ($180,000 in estimated savings);
• Reducing electric heater usage by 58% ($69,000 in estimated savings);
• Rework avoidance ($171,860 in estimated savings)