Saskatoon | Baydo Towers | ??m - ??m | 25-25 Floors | U/C

[alt_center]

Originally Posted by YXE

Can someone please explain to me why we keep seeing excavations happen throughout the coldest months of the winter?? Correct me if I’m wrong but is the ground not frozen?! Sorry for my ignorance here, I’ve just never understood it.

I think there are advantages to excavating while the ground is frozen. Things are more stable. I recall being in Berlin and seeing the giant refrigeration system they were using in the middle of summer to freeze the ground solid for work on a subway extension. It was impressive! In Regina the "big dig" was done in winter.

[Crisis]

While it's more expensive to excavate frozen materials, it's often important to the overall schedule to get the digging done during the winter. The premium paid for heating & hoarding the concrete work and weather susceptible exterior finishes will typically surpass the additional cost of frost ripping for excavation.

For the Big Dig in Regina, it was required to be done in the winter so the equipment could operate on what was a frozen lakebed and remove all of the "organics" at the bottom of Wascana Lake that would have been a very unpleasant soft muck during warm weather.

[GreenCanoe]

Long time observer on the site, but first time post.

Just theorizing about why excavations are done during winter. The most the frost goes down the entire winter is about eight feet. If you continue to excavate, you don't have to go through much frozen ground as it won't freeze much over the time it has to freeze. Also, with the sandier soils around the city it probably would not take much force to break up the frozen ground. The clay in Regina is likely a bit different as water bonds to clay and when frozen gets mighty hard.

Then there is the consideration of hauling away the excavated material. In the winter when the ground is frozen, the roads have a far higher capacity to support loads. I do not know about in the city, but outside the city the legal weights trucks can haul in the winter are a fair amount higher than in the summer. That's why there is always a rush for farmers to get their grain hauled in the spring before the road bans come on.

[The Bess]

Hello and welcome Green Canoe

[Sask.ks]

Just hopping on this excavation discussion because I’m curious now too. What do they do with the excavated material? Does anyone know? Is it just dumped in a yard somewhere to later be used as fill on other projects?

[Crisis]

Originally Posted by Sask.ks

Just hopping on this excavation discussion because I’m curious now too. What do they do with the excavated material? Does anyone know? Is it just dumped in a yard somewhere to later be used as fill on other projects?

That's a pretty good summary. It all depends if there is work going on that needs fill at that time. Most of the excavated material from the parkade beneath the Alt Hotel / No.1 River Landing went out to the new Rosewood development. Some of the material from the East Tower parkade went to the auto mall development on 71st Street where the new VW dealership is located, while the rest of it was stockpiled for future use.

It also depends on the suitability of the excavated material for re-use. Some might be high in organics or be high-plastic clay and only good for landscaped areas, whereas low-plastic clay and sandy soils are generally suitable as fill for other construction projects.

[Sask.ks]

Originally Posted by Crisis

That's a pretty good summary. It all depends if there is work going on that needs fill at that time. Most of the excavated material from the parkade beneath the Alt Hotel / No.1 River Landing went out to the new Rosewood development. Some of the material from the East Tower parkade went to the auto mall development on 71st Street where the new VW dealership is located, while the rest of it was stockpiled for future use.

It also depends on the suitability of the excavated material for re-use. Some might be high in organics or be high-plastic clay and only good for landscaped areas, whereas low-plastic clay and sandy soils are generally suitable as fill for other construction projects.

Awesome, thanks for the insight Crisis!

[roryn1]

Digging seems to have sped up in this horrible weather

[The Bess]

Thanks roryn1 it does look like more progress, maybe they see rental market improving and are speeding up, or Broadway Baydo coming to an end.

[roryn1]

They are going very fast!

[roryn1]

[Crisis]

Thanks for the photo update.

That's a very interesting/odd excavation happening there. It certainly appears to be going much deeper than the shoring and not out to the extent of the shoring either. As memory serves (and because this site is crazy slow for me these day and I don't want to search back several pages), there are only 2 levels of underground parking. If that's correct, the deep excavation in the middle would appear to be down much further than required. Are there unsuitable soils that needed to be removed? That would be very odd at that depth.

Anyways, very interesting and non-typical excavation taking place now. I'll be curious to see more photos as it progresses.

[roryn1]

I never even thought about that. I assumed at this depth they’re doing 4 levels... maybe a change?

[Crisis]

Originally Posted by roryn1

I never even thought about that. I assumed at this depth they’re doing 4 levels... maybe a change?

You're right. I went back to Page 1 and found this from alt_centre:

I heard Chris Luczka on CBC radio this morning. He said there would be 513 spaces on 4 underground levels and 2 podium levels, and the stalls would be big enough for full size pickup trucks (this is Sask. after all).

[roryn1]

Wow 513 spots is epic - city of Saskatoon could give up their final surface parking lease a block over and PR Developments might be forced to build or sell their 24th and 5th surface lot if Baydo is looking to also get into the parking business. Bye bye surface parking with the new 100’s of River Landing parking spots, over 100 newly available underground parking spots at Scotia Center once Nutrien moves to River Landing, and these 500 Baydo spots. This may not be the prettiest project, but it removes risk for anyone potentially thinking about building an even uglier above ground parkade and financially helps choke out all of our fugly surface parking investors downtown.

I’ll send another photo in a week, but I dare say that digging could wrap up within a couple weeks at the current speed... if weather cooperates.. I think that -40 spell slowed them down a ton but they seem to want to be done before it warms up more.

[Crisis]

Given that there are 426 units in the Baydo building, I'm not convinced there will be a lot of spare parking. While there will certainly be some residents that don't need a stall, so will rent theirs out, I'm guessing the demand for a second stalls will be greater than the supply of spare stalls.

As for people flocking to the UG parking at River Landing, I wouldn't be holding my breath for that. It's way more expensive than surface parking (parking lot or street) so, other than someone going for an event there in the winter, I don't see it getting a ton of use. I go to River Landing quite often during work hours and have never used the UG parkade, even though the East Tower parkade has been open for over a year - I always just park on the street and use my WayToPark app.

There may be more uptake on parking UG at Scotia Centre due to its proximity to shopping, but I still don't think you'll see a wholesale shift from cheap surface parking to more expensive UG parking.

[roryn1]

Agreed - short term though while Baydo takes prob like 5+ years to rent out all of those units and whatever the heck happens to scotia center (i’m really hoping they turn it into condos), there’s going to be some cheap underground parking options!

[roryn1]

[prairieguy]

Looks like timing will be about right for them to move crane from Broadway project to 25th Street project.

[YXE]

I still have to pinch myself from time to time considering that Saskatoon is getting TWO 25 story buildings.