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Q:This is a fairly unique building with a condo tower next to a hotel. What are some of the challenges?

A: I think the challenge when you consider that they also sit on a parkade, there are three different ownership groups, there are three different architecture groups, there are two different structural engineers, three different mechanical engineers and two different electrical engineers. And so between that everything gets integrated into one. So communication was the biggest challenge on this project. That is, figuring out who to talk to for what piece of information to make it all come together.

There’s a lot of pieces that interact and these are actually two separate buildings. There is a one-foot space between them. And the space is developed because they will move slightly differently. So as soon as you have a wind, the buildings sway and their stiffness makes them sway differently, so that they’ve got a little bit of space so they never collide together.

Photo by Kayle Neis / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Q:You’ve been with this project from the start. What was your reaction when the developers told you they wanted to add four floors to this building?

A: Yeah, I almost fell off my chair. I knew they wanted to add it, but I didn’t think that we would be able to do it, just with all the constraints we already had in place. We had the foundation package out for tender. We knew what all the concrete sizes were going to be. We knew all the reinforcement steel.

We redesigned the footings, we redesigned the columns, we redesigned the stair and elevator shafts, all to accommodate the four extra floors. And the transfer force slab as well. But we didn’t know it was going to work. At the start, we were thinking, for sure two (floors), and so we looked into a little bit and we were like, ‘No, I think we can actually do four.’ And then we did the complete redesign.