FORT MCMURRAY | Golden Buffalo | 489FT / 149M | 37 Floors

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Dylan Leblanc

Where does the 149 m / 37 floor height come from? The building elevations and renderings show a 107 m / 25 floor building.

The 149 meters comes from the PDF. The building is being redesigned currently, and has had its height increased. According to someone in-the-know on the project, the new design will still be multi tower, but will include an aspect of gold colouring in the cladding.

[isaidso]

I love how bold the cities on the prairies are. I think the culture out there is far more aggressive due to the frontier mentality needed to settle that part of the country. People out east are so timid by comparison. You can't even get something 149m tall approved in Halifax. People react like the BORG just showed up.

The tinge of gold would look stunning set against the autumn wilderness surrounding Ft. Mac.

[Chadillaccc]

The listing in the diagrams was edited down to 107 meters.

The original design was 107 meters (as rendered on the first page), the ongoing redesign is 149 meters. Regardless, I made a 107 meter drawing for this tower.

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I love how bold the cities on the prairies are. I think the culture out there is far more aggressive due to the frontier mentality needed to settle that part of the country. People out east are so timid by comparison. You can't even get something 149m tall approved in Halifax. People react like the BORG just showed up.

The tinge of gold would look stunning set against the autumn wilderness surrounding Ft. Mac.

Just a small correction : For Mac isn't on the prairies. It's basically in the northern wilds. Nearest farm has to be a couple hundred kilometers away.

Also , Fort Mac is truly a modern day boom town in every sense of the word. It's easy to build in a place like Fort Mac due to the fact that all of about three people actually live there on a permanent basis. Okay , yes , I'm grossly exaggerating but with a severe housing shortage , a major portion of the population being transient , and major population projections , it's like the perfect storm for grand building plans.

[ue]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

I'm afraid I don't understand the connection you're trying to make. Mississauga has over 700,000 people. A 150m building there doesn't seem off at all.

Mississauga is merely a suburb of Toronto. To me, it's about equal to Fort McMurray building as tall as Edmonton in terms of being overtaken by less important locales. Circumstances are different (and really Mississauga is an outgrowth of Toronto, with 6 million people) but it gives off a similar impression.

Originally Posted by isaidso

I love how bold the cities on the prairies are. I think the culture out there is far more aggressive due to the frontier mentality needed to settle that part of the country. People out east are so timid by comparison. You can't even get something 149m tall approved in Halifax. People react like the BORG just showed up.

The tinge of gold would look stunning set against the autumn wilderness surrounding Ft. Mac.

It helps being a young culture that doesn't have a centuries old built form to contend with. But it wasn't always like this. While the western frontier of Canada was building wooden shacks in the 1880s and '90s, Halifax was building this. Montreal built this while Edmonton was a meager fur trading fort and Calgary didn't even exist yet. Now it's Alberta's time to build more boldly with things like this Fort Mac proposal.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Just a small correction : For Mac isn't on the prairies. It's basically in the northern wilds. Nearest farm has to be a couple hundred kilometers away.

Also , Fort Mac is truly a modern day boom town in every sense of the word. It's easy to build in a place like Fort Mac due to the fact that all of about three people actually live there on a permanent basis. Okay , yes , I'm grossly exaggerating but with a severe housing shortage , a major portion of the population being transient , and major population projections , it's like the perfect storm for grand building plans.

I believe he was just talking about Western Canada in general, as cities of 200 000 out here (Regina, Saskatoon) have skylines comparable to cities of 500 000 back east.


Actually, the vast majority of the population of the city is permanent.

The total population of Wood Buffalo Regional Municipality is 116 000 as of 2012 municipal census, with a permanent population of 74,631, a shadow population of 2,505, and a project accommodation population of 39,271.

That said, the population of the Urban Service Area (city) of Fort McMurray, as of the 2012 municipal census, was 73 000, with a permanent population of 71 000, and a shadow population of 2000, with a project accommodation population of 0.

http://www.woodbuffalo.ab.ca/Municip...us-Reports.htm

Fort McMurray is a city, with a large permanent population.

Projections put the permanent population of Wood Buffalo at around 102 000 by 2019, and 110 000 by 2026. Under the medium growth scenario. Over 90% of Wood Buffalo's permanent population resides in the Urban Service Area of Fort McMurray.

http://www.countygp.ab.ca/assets/Dep...02012-2041.pdf

[Dylan Leblanc]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The listing in the diagrams was edited down to 107 meters.

The original design was 107 meters (as rendered on the first page), the ongoing redesign is 149 meters. Regardless, I made a 107 meter drawing for this tower.

The brochure seemed to have conflicting information, so I used info from the most detailed source, the elevation drawings. When we get more information on the taller design we can update the database entry

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Just a small correction : For Mac isn't on the prairies. It's basically in the northern wilds. Nearest farm has to be a couple hundred kilometers away.

Perhaps, but the only reason there are no farms near Ft. Mac is because it's too far north to sustain grain production. Besides, the broader definition of prairie are the 'Interior Plains' which stretch all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Fast forward 80 years, and it's quite likely that the farm lands will have spread as far north as Yellowknife.

America's Interior Plains



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interior_Plains

[Chadillaccc]

Cool map! I've seen that before, but totally failed to realize that Southern Ontario is included in the Interior Plains. Makes sense though, the stretch between London and Windsor is as flat as anything I've ever seen out here in Alberta.


Also, Fort McMurray now has a diagram!

http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=62827118

[TriWolf]

It's about time Ft Mcmurray started to show off it's growth!

[cityguy]

Any idea when construction will start?

[Surrealplaces]

Sorry to be a nitpick here, but there are actually farms right near Fort Mac (some to the west and some to the south that are 20 minutes away) Vegetable farms and even some livestock farms.

....but yes outside of that, there really aren't any. You'd have to go about 200 kms south around the Wandering River area before you see any other farms.

Originally Posted by Spocket

Just a small correction : For Mac isn't on the prairies. It's basically in the northern wilds. Nearest farm has to be a couple hundred kilometers away.

Also , Fort Mac is truly a modern day boom town in every sense of the word. It's easy to build in a place like Fort Mac due to the fact that all of about three people actually live there on a permanent basis. Okay , yes , I'm grossly exaggerating but with a severe housing shortage , a major portion of the population being transient , and major population projections , it's like the perfect storm for grand building plans.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by cityguy

Any idea when construction will start?

Most likely not within the year. As has been discussed, the project is undergoing a major redesign that is seeing its height increased from 107 to 149 meters. The new design is not yet released.

[TriWolf]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Most likely not within the year. As has been discussed, the project is undergoing a major redesign that is seeing its height increased from 107 to 149 meters. The new design is not yet released.

Or never :/

[Reichert]

That's not only a game changer for Fort Mac, it's a game changer north of the 55th parallel, period...at least when it comes to this continent.

[TriWolf]

Any news on this proposal?

[tateyb]

Urban Complex Proposed for Fort McMurray

After a year of economic downturn experienced by the oil industry, the fate of the project remains highly uncertain.

Golden Buffalo Centre, image via Golden Buffalo Development and IBI/HB Architects