Olympic Village & Southeast False Creek Updates Discussion

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

They have been doing a lot of pile driving and/or drilling in recent weeks. Concerned about the soil quality?

Probably more about the stability of the fill, and the edges of their hole for the parking levels. That site wasn't actually industrial - it was in the Creek, with the Great Northern Railway crossing the shallow water on a trestle. McDonald, Wilson and Snider had a wharf to import construction materials to the immediate east (where Central was built) and when they excavated that there was a lot of wharf lumber that had been buried. There was a sawmill to the south of that. There may be remains of the trestle, or the footing here, and there are no doubt a few hundred years of accumulated mud from the edge of the Creek, so although there's not a lot of fill, the original 'land' that was below the Creek will be different from the glacial sites we generally see excavated. Here's a map from John Atkin (via National Geographic) showing where the Creek used to be.

[jollyburger]

The old city works yard next to the Cambie Bridge was/is (?) one of the most contaminated sites with heavy metals:

https://council.vancouver.ca/970424/kwokreport/report03.htm#E10E3



Seems like BC Transit owned that property for a while for a bus depot until the 1998/99. Land was used for a support paddock for the Indy track in 1997

https://council.vancouver.ca/previous_years/970313/pe4.htm

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Probably more about the stability of the fill, and the edges of their hole for the parking levels. That site wasn't actually industrial - it was in the Creek, with the Great Northern Railway crossing the shallow water on a trestle. McDonald, Wilson and Snider had a wharf to import construction materials to the immediate east (where Central was built) and when they excavated that there was a lot of wharf lumber that had been buried. There was a sawmill to the south of that. There may be remains of the trestle, or the footing here, and there are no doubt a few hundred years of accumulated mud from the edge of the Creek, so although there's not a lot of fill, the original 'land' that was below the Creek will be different from the glacial sites we generally see excavated.

Oh definitely, but it's not the first parkade to be dug in that area, so maybe something specific about that land.

Here's a great shot from 1899 I believe, at Main and 7th looking north:

[mcminsen]

Amazing photo. I downsized it a bit.

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Oh definitely, but it's not the first parkade to be dug in that area, so maybe something specific about that land.

Here's a great shot from 1899 I believe, at Main and 7th looking north:

[jollyburger]

1905



https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/plat...reek-to-quebec-street-to-dufferin-street

The BC Transit facility was the False Creek Transit Centre. Seems like it was built in 1984 and lasted 6-7 years.

[logan5]

Great picture.

What's that thing running parallel to Main Street. Looks like an elevated sidewalk.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Oh definitely, but it's not the first parkade to be dug in that area, so maybe something specific about that land.

I think it might be because it was originally under water, so the sediment layer will be under the more recent fill. It's over 15 years since they did the work, but I'm pretty certain they installed a steel piled perimeter around the Olympic Village parkades as well, and Concord had to do the same on the north side of the Creek for Arc.

[hollywoodnorth]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I think it might be because it was originally under water, so the sediment layer will be under the more recent fill. It's over 15 years since they did the work, but I'm pretty certain they installed a steel piled perimeter around the Olympic Village parkades as well, and Concord had to do the same on the north side of the Creek for Arc.

do you think they will need to do the same for the NEW ST PAULS?

I am assuming so.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by hollywoodnorth

do you think they will need to do the same for the NEW ST PAULS?

I am assuming so.

It didn't appear so on PCLs recent presentation. They're going down three and a half levels for the parking basement and there was no indication of any piling being involved.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

Amazing photo. I downsized it a bit.

Thanks! And yeah a cool one.

[jlousa]

Had a meeting with some city waterworks inspectors at one of our sites just outside the Olympic village. Apparently the NEU is only generating 17% of the energy that the engineers say it should be generating. They figure that there is a bunch of cross connections and storm water is getting mixed with the sewer lines. They are checking very single property that feeds into it. It's going to have to be a lot of buildings to cause an issue that big. I got the feeling from the inspectors that they didnt think that was the main issue but were doing as told.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Had a meeting with some city waterworks inspectors at one of our sites just outside the Olympic village. Apparently the NEU is only generating 17% of the energy that the engineers say it should be generating. They figure that there is a bunch of cross connections and storm water is getting mixed with the sewer lines. They are checking very single property that feeds into it. It's going to have to be a lot of buildings to cause an issue that big. I got the feeling from the inspectors that they didnt think that was the main issue but were doing as told.

Wouldn't that be oxertaxing the system to the point of failure? Our building is on the system and we had a hot water failure a month or two back. The city came to fix it and the hot water was nuclear hot for a day before they tuned it back down.

I like the system generally, but the billing is a bit opaque. If the issue you describe is happening, are we even being billed fairly for the energy used?

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Had a meeting with some city waterworks inspectors at one of our sites just outside the Olympic village. Apparently the NEU is only generating 17% of the energy that the engineers say it should be generating. They figure that there is a bunch of cross connections and storm water is getting mixed with the sewer lines. They are checking very single property that feeds into it. It's going to have to be a lot of buildings to cause an issue that big. I got the feeling from the inspectors that they didnt think that was the main issue but were doing as told.

I guess it's unrelated but there was flooding in October 2018 was only fixed in 2020 Q1. They were just running on the NG boilers in the meantime. I guess if they can run the entire system off NG then it wouldn't be overtaxing if the system was at 17%.

https://council.vancouver.ca/20201201/documents/spec1e.pdf

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I guess it's unrelated but there was flooding in October 2018 was only fixed in 2020 Q1. They were just running on the NG boilers in the meantime. I guess if they can run the entire system off NG then it wouldn't be overtaxing if the system was at 17%.

https://council.vancouver.ca/20201201/documents/spec1e.pdf

I guess it depends what is meant by 17%. 17% of what?

They are justifying their continual price increases by the need to increase system capacity on a regular basis, every ~5 years or so. All of these items don't really add up, unless I'm missing something.

[jlousa]

My understand it the system is only recovering 17% of the heat that the engineers said it should be recovering, leading to them needing to burn more natural gas then expected.

[hollywoodnorth]

Originally Posted by Changing City

It didn't appear so on PCLs recent presentation. They're going down three and a half levels for the parking basement and there was no indication of any piling being involved.

thanks! I am sure the people living in the area will be happy to hear that.

[hollywoodnorth]

will St Pauls be connected into the OV NEU?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Had a meeting with some city waterworks inspectors at one of our sites just outside the Olympic village. Apparently the NEU is only generating 17% of the energy that the engineers say it should be generating. They figure that there is a bunch of cross connections and storm water is getting mixed with the sewer lines. They are checking very single property that feeds into it. It's going to have to be a lot of buildings to cause an issue that big. I got the feeling from the inspectors that they didnt think that was the main issue but were doing as told.

Yay, go Greenest City!

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

i heard that on an average day they still need to burn 30% natural gas. though cant say i am an expert in the system.

i do wonder how efficient it will be since the more it expands, the more heat they'll need to produce and it doesn't sound amazing at the moment.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i heard that on an average day they still need to burn 30% natural gas. though cant say i am an expert in the system.

i do wonder how efficient it will be since the more it expands, the more heat they'll need to produce and it doesn't sound amazing at the moment.

They announced they were expanding the heat recovery at the end of 2020:

https://canada.constructconnect.com/joc/...ent-invest-in-false-creek-energy-upgrade

Seems like St Pauls is planning on being connected to the district energy grid:

https://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/1002station/documents/13-sustainability.pdf