265 replies to this topic

[G-Man]

nope but I just went to take a closer look and it looks like they still have about a quarter of the floor to frame. I am sure the crane will have to go up in the next couple of weeks because there is only about 10 feet of clearance beneath it.

[Mike K.]

Wow, yeah that sounds like it's about to go up. Those rising cranes always throw people for a loop who think the building will only be two or three storeys tall upon completion. :tup:

[Icebergalley]

Progress Progress

A ground seal was placed today and the work at extending the base slab should get going soon..

[G-Man]

Fourth Floor plate supports are in and pouring should happen anyday.

[Icebergalley]

Big pour there today.... in the hole..... two pumpers and a couple of cement finishing crews extending the raft slab..

Lots of below grade plumbing work too..

So Aria is growing tall and broading out at it's base..

[Icebergalley]

Mar. 6, 2007

Big pour this am.. raft slab extended and finished this evening...

Three excavators working to open up the final part of the site..

Looks as if they will finish another floor in the first "tower" this week..



Another floor

[G-Man]

I just strolled by the site and the excavation seems to have uncovered an old pier. There is a series of old kreosote soaked piles in groups at the western end of the site. I don't have my camera but does anyone have an opportunity to go down and take a pic before they are ripped out?

Of course I could be reading to much into this but I thought this was the location of a bunch of old factories and stuff.

[D.L.]

heritage piles!!

[G-Man]

It would be somewhere at the end of those rowhouses going down the hill.

[Icebergalley]

I just strolled by the site and the excavation seems to have uncovered an old pier. There is a series of old kreosote soaked piles in groups at the western end of the site. I don't have my camera but does anyone have an opportunity to go down and take a pic before they are ripped out?

Of course I could be reading to much into this but I thought this was the location of a bunch of old factories and stuff.

There was a long concrete beam with some re-bar in it over the top of those piles.. hammerd out and "deconstructed" - rebar seperated out..

Looks as if they are on the Budget (City owned) side of the property line..

Perhaps they were part of the steam plant or laundry for the Empress?? You can see that the Budget lot is on a suspended slab that was neatly sawn and a block wall constructed between the concrete pillars.. There's a steel door in the wall..

Anyway.. some of the "old timers" here may be able to enlighten us..

[Galvanized]

There's a steel door in the wall..

Could that be the entrance to the tunnel that goes under Douglas St to the Conference Centre parkade?

[Icebergalley]

Don't know..

Was hoping that there'd be a "site" historian around to fill in the gaps...

But, now that someone has tried to delaminate the wooden door, I see that it is not the steel door that I thought I saw..

[Holden West]

I believe that's an entrance to a tunnel that's been talked about before on various places. Probably in Ross Crockford's book, and the Urban Exploration Forum. I'm pretty certain I read about it in Monday Magazine as well. I think it's just a utility tunnel that goes to the Empress basement.

[G-Man]

The site is almost completely excavated now with just a small corner at the North West corner of the lot left. Foundation is working its way all the way round. The phase one is just beginning to have the 6th floor plate supports put into place.

[Mike K.]

[Icebergalley]

March 22, 2007

Saw steel studding and drywall being unloaded at the Aria this am.

[Urbalist]

The land is worth just over $10-million, and the commercial portion is about 4% of that. The bldg value once constructed will have many a zero.

In '96, Sipos bought it for $5.3m for a Delta brand hotel site, but the contamination killed it. When Sipos foreclosed, Farmer took it over, tried a budget hotel, that flopped, and resold it for $3.6m in 2000. After Sipos took his haircut, he went after PCL for the dirty dirt, and settled out after a half decade spat.

[Icebergalley]

Duh?

[G-Man]

Why would it have been PCLs fault?

[Icebergalley]

If you have been looking, there have been many many truck trailer combo's hauling lots of dirty dirty away...

Someone's paying for that... The purchaser!