Toronto CIBC SQUARE | 241.39m | 50s | Hines | WilkinsonEyre

[tstormers]

I am working on prelim designs for office towers at my office and we actually just had a call to an elevator consultant that said 1 elevator per 40,000-45,000 sqft of floor area. There are minor things that can shift the area number which is why its a varied number over an exact.

 

[Michael62]

It can be sometimes very hard to find and use the stairs in any building, if you only need to go up or down one or two floors.

A lot of buildings, like mine, for example, have locked out stairs. If you enter the stairwell you can't access other floors because all the doors are locked from the inside. All stairs exit outside of the building. After a pretty spectacular robbery, by someone using multiple keys from multiple estate agent lockboxes that were attached to the exit stair railings up and down the stairs, multiple units were burgled. We ended up with new high tech keys, more security cameras, cameras in all the elevators, a full-time two-person concierge team and an 'only registered' estate agents with their concierge supervised lockbox room.

 

[Amare]

Interesting! I completely agree the city should revisit minimum elevator requirements for residential. However, in my opinion I actually see a stark difference in usage between office and residential. For office buildings you have multiple businesses sharing multiple floors, employees using them constantly, outside of the standard usage for breaks (lunch, smoking, coffee, etc.) and ongoing visitors (partners, vendors, etc.). I can't count how many times I am in my office elevator daily (maybe 6?), but I sure can count how many times I use my condo elevator daily. I just don't see condo elevators heavily used beyond the standard rush hours.

There is no doubt about that, and I dont dispute that office buildings have very heavy usage but we cant underestimate the usage that occurs in residential buildings as well. Residents use them not only for entering and exiting, but also: to get to and from the laundry room (if they dont have ones in suite), recycling/organic compost rooms (if they are not located on each floor), amenity floors, storage rooms, bike rooms, etc..

It would be one thing if developers actually installed quality elevators that have lower failure rates; but since most of them are opting for cheaper options that use cheaper parts, we are seeing more and more elevators which are out of service on any given day. Commercial/office developments usually dont suffer from the same problem and more developers in those sectors use better quality elevators compared to residential developers. If residential developers want to play the game of installing cheap elevators, they should be mandated to install a higher minimum amount.

As for who could legislate it, from my understanding it would fall under the province's watch and not so much the city.

The general rule of thumb for residential is 1 per 100-150 units, yes. Generally a minimum of two elevators no matter what however, unless it is a really, really small building.

A 600 unit building would typically have maybe 5-6 elevators, depending on how cheap the developer is.

My building for example has about 350 units and has 4 elevators - though my understanding is that this is actually quite a high number for the unit count. My last building had around 300 units and had 3 elevators.

That's pretty pathetic if it's true that it is 1 elevator per every 100-150 units. Where I live, it's 2 elevators at about ~60 units and there is pretty consistent and heavy usage even though my building has 2 separate sets of stairs located on opposite ends for easy exit. I wont even get into the buildings that have just 1 sole stair exit route.

These days, residential elevators are built as cheap as they can come and their failure rates are somewhat higher compared to the older better built ones. The 1 per every 100-150 units may have worked in the past where the elevators were better quality and developers didnt cheap out everywhere they could, but in today's age that's simply not good enough.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Most buildings built in the last 50 years have at least two staircases - it's a code requirement.

My building is about 10 years old and the elevators work wonderfully. I've lived here for a little over a year now and can count on one hand the amount of times I have had to wait more than 2 minutes for an elevator.

 

[Edward Skira]

The first load of steel has arrived on a flatbed truck

I thought the steel was coming by train.

 

[vini007]

there has to be a easy way on doing the walls panels looks like brand new sheets of plywood or is different model for this floor? hope they don't have to do it every floor rise sucks..and is that the base of the elevator on the flatbed truck ..?

 

[vini007]

I thought the steel was coming by train.

and so was I..

 

[raptor]

I thought the steel was coming by train.

My understanding was that only the rail deck park steel would be delivered by train

 

[vini007]

My understanding was that only the rail deck park steel would be delivered by train

you know why if possible ? thank you

 

[Amare]

Most buildings built in the last 50 years have at least two staircases - its a code requirement.

My building is about 10 years old and the elevators work wonderfully. I've lived here for a little over a year now and can count on one hand the amount of times I have had to wait more than 2 minutes for an elevator.

The problem with the current requirements is when you have residential buildings with smaller floor plates and 5-6 units on each floor, but there are 15+ stories. I once lived in an 18 story building with only 2 elevators and 1 staircase and the waits for elevators would average 4-5 minutes no matter what time of day it was. If an elevator ended up breaking down, the whole situation would just turn into an outright mess. Let's just say i didnt even last 1 year before moving out from that place.

In any case I dont necessarily want to derail this thread with the elevator problems we have in buildings across this city; we may have to open up an elevator thread at some point in the near future to further expand on this as it seems like there are quite a few people here who have knowledge on the minimum elevator requirements and the ratio of elevators/# of units and floor space. I was simply astonished that there will be 45+ elevators on site here which is great.

 

[Capslock]

you know why if possible ? thank you

I don't know why for a fact, but given that the steel would be arriving as a more or less continuous stream for the main tower, it seems highly unlikely to be practical to dedicate an entire rail track just outside of Union Station for the duration of the project, which is what it would require. The overbuild is a discrete bit of work of limited scope that sits directly over the railtrack, and with no access to the main site tower cranes, so here I guess it makes sense to use rail delivery.

 

[Michael62]

Friday, Aug 10

Westside Story: The core is at the exact same configuration as it was on Sept 30 except it is now one level higher. Nothing more to report here other than all the panels are at height and pre-formed rebar is being installed. The top of the exterior forms are about the same level as the top of the Scotiabank Arena roof (formerly ACC)

Eastside Story: Slow progress on forming the Ground Level 01 to the east of Crane#3 The exterior walls along the north wall and the east wall adjacent to 18 Yonge Street continues to grow. Some work is being done on the Yonge St. access ramp but it is out of my view

50/50 draw for absolutely no prize... guess the date for the next lift. The last core lift took 10 days to complete.

My guess is August 18

 

[someMidTowner]

Friday, Aug 10

Westside Story: The core is at the exact same configuration as it was on Sept 30 except it is now one level higher. Nothing more to report here other than all the panels are at height and pre-formed rebar is being installed. The top of the exterior forms are about the same level as the top of the Scotiabank Arena roof (formerly ACC)

View attachment 153089

Eastside Story: Slow progress on forming the Ground Level 01 to the east of Crane#3 The exterior walls along the north wall and the east wall adjacent to 18 Yonge Street continues to grow. Some work is being done on the Yonge St. access ramp but it is out of my view

View attachment 153094

50/50 draw for absolutely no prize... guess the date for the next lift. The last core lift took 10 days to complete.

My guess is August 18

The latest @Michael62 update stitched:

 

[ponyboy]

a few from today --

 

[sammmy]