Toronto The Well | 174.03m | 46s | RioCan | Hariri Pontarini

Pic taken Jan 29, 2018


WSVfwFW.jpg
 
No pictures this time, but a general update on the activities at The Well site:

The two shoring machines and the mobile crane in the south-west corner of the site were not active at all today - do not know whether they are finished on the set, and just waiting for pick up, or will resume work in the future.

On the Wellington side, site preparation activities are continuing, with small scale excavation and retaining wall construction taking place on the east end of the Wellington Street perimeter, by the 401 Wellington building.

In the south-east corner, both along the Spadina frontage, as well as along Front Street, excavation activities and installation of the retaining walls is continuing. On the south side of the 401 Wellington Street building, a shotcrete retaining wall has been built, and excavation of a wide trench area is underway in front of the wall. The photo by Red Mars (above) also shows the large tieback machine working on the Front Street retaining wall.

Three excavators were active much, if not all, of the day today. A flotilla of 45 (according to one of the staff on site) dump trucks was arriving, being filled, and departing in a steady stream throughout the day.

If three excavators in just one corner of the site can keep 45 trucks going, one wonders what it will look like if excavation activities are carried out concurrently in other areas - the west end and the northern part of the site.
 
Can someone tell me which location that this earth gets moved to ? Because there's alot to be excavated !
 
Good luck figuring that out. Organizations have done entire investigative reports into this. The fill industry is quite unregulated at the moment and it is starting to draw some criticism from environmental organizations. The location where the fill is dumped is usually kept from the public. About the only detail I could provide is that it ends up on private property where the owners of the land are paid a fee. The concerns range from the pollutants in the soil as these sites are often former industrial lands in past decades or centuries when the concept of ground water and soil contamination didn't exist, to more minor grievances such as dust generation from heaping pills of dirt. In my teens I worked on a small farm that had a massive pile of fill from activity similar to this. Basically the fill ends up here, there and everywhere, ideally as close to the city as possible to reduce trucking costs.
 
Moving fill around is actually regulated by the Ministry of Environment. Detailed soil testing reports are required to confirm that there is no contamination in the subject material such that everything is properly documented and the receiving party is protected from potential liability.

It is not exactly something one could just sweep under the rug.
 
no, but there is no control over who gets the soil. If it is deemed clean, it can go anywhere.

The most extreme case is probably the Goodwood airport, which is federally regulated. GFL bought the small grass runway through a holding company and started a federally regulated "airport expansion", accepting thousands of loads of fill, some of it contaminated. It was just piled right on top of the runway as high as they could go. It's still going on, but the amount of fill is ridiculous. Now the town of Scugog is left with a small mountain of contaminated fill in a situation they saw coming from day one that they could not prevent as the landowner circumvented them through federal regulations.



https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.1329...4!1sU1ALEM-vyvSztObygt0ONg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.1387...4!1s9eW0RfdFom28U-3r69cK4Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

PPZ_GreenbankContaminated05_Gallery.jpg

https://www.durhamregion.com/news-s...k-airport-not-a-dump-site-says-airbase-owner/
 
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Near Tottenham, Ontario there is a small airport that has been receiving hundreds of truck loads of dirt a day for at least the last 3 years! All the soil is tested from origin as to not have any contaminants and has to come from escarpment zones since the airport is on the Morraine and Escapment zone.
 
Sorry if this has been answered already but is there an anchor tenant for the office portion?
 
no, but there is no control over who gets the soil. If it is deemed clean, it can go anywhere.

The most extreme case is probably the Goodwood airport, which is federally regulated. GFL bought the small grass runway through a holding company and started a federally regulated "airport expansion", accepting thousands of loads of fill, some of it contaminated. It was just piled right on top of the runway as high as they could go. It's still going on, but the amount of fill is ridiculous. Now the town of Scugog is left with a small mountain of contaminated fill in a situation they saw coming from day one that they could not prevent as the landowner circumvented them through federal regulations.



https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.1329...4!1sU1ALEM-vyvSztObygt0ONg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.1387...4!1s9eW0RfdFom28U-3r69cK4Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

PPZ_GreenbankContaminated05_Gallery.jpg

https://www.durhamregion.com/news-s...k-airport-not-a-dump-site-says-airbase-owner/

Right airport expansion. Next they'll say these massive mounds being built around the GTA are "green" since Cessnas can be pushed off the side to reach flight speed instead of expending fuel to take off. Where's the pride in ownership? This is flat out exploitation of a federal loophole that allows a airport owner to do whatever they want by simply claiming airport expansion. It's just ridiculous.
 
Activity at The Well is definitely picking up. This morning, seven excavators were operating concurrently on the site. A large, brand new tieback machine arrived on a flat bed truck just as I was walking by on Front Street, and according to one of the people on site, another tieback machine is due to arrive tomorrow.

One of the two shoring machines has been back in action over the past couple of days. This morning, while the one shoring machine was operating, the other shoring machine was being disassembled in preparation for removal from the site.

One other note - While Allied Properties' position has been that construction of the office tower at the corner of Front and Spadina would require a material pre-leasing commitment prior to construction, according to those on site, construction of the office tower is proceeding without any delay. Ellis Don is the construction project manager of the office tower, while Tridel is the construction project manager for the residential components.
 
It's the end of thing that they'll be lining up VIPs for, probably get a tent, have a ceremony, wait til better weather, etc.

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