At the former site of the The Guvernment/Kool Haus on Toronto's waterfront, shoring work is continuing for the dual office tower phase of Daniels Waterfront: City of the Arts at 132 Queens Quay East. Since this project is located so close to Lake Ontario, the shoring work will result in a watertight retaining structure called a caisson in order to prevent potential flooding.

The first dig back at Daniels Waterfront: City of the Arts, image by kotsy

To create the caisson, shoring rigs drill holes into the ground at regular intervals along the line of the future wall. The holes are lined with hollow casings. Steel beams called soldier piles are lowered into every fourth drill hole and implanted into the bedrock, then concrete is injected into all of the casings and around the soldier piles. To form the watertight wall, subsequent drill holes (fillers) will cut right into the concrete of the adjacent pile and fill that space with concrete, gradually forming an interlocked line of piles. When that is completed, the excavation can begin. 

A row of steel beams form the perimeter of the first phase of Daniels Waterfront: City of the Arts, image by kotsy

A stack of steel beams (solider piles) waiting to be implanted, image by kotsy

Shoring rig at the site of Daniels Waterfront - City of the Arts, image by kotsy

A fresly poured concrete pile cures, image by kotsy

Once the excavation reaches a certain depth, a steel tie-back will be installed in at each steel pile to add horizontal support for the caisson wall, allowing excavation to proceed deeper. After they have reached their final depth of 47 feet this Fall, Daniels' team will start building the foundation and 4-storey underground parking garage. 

The first dig back of the first phase of Daniels Waterfront: City of the Arts, image by kotsy

Random items are sometimes found during the excavation process. In this particular dig, there is an abundance of uniquely shaped glass bottles. Our tour guide Ashley tells us this site has proven to have more surprises than the last one she worked on.

Finding items such as bottles is not at all uncommon during the dig back process, image by kotsy

Demolition of the building on the north end of the site is also expected to take place this fall to make way for the two residential towers with a combined total of 900 suites. The entire project has a total budget of $700 Million and is expected to be completed by 2019 with office portion opening one year earlier.

Rendering of Daniels Waterfront - City of the Arts, image courtesy of The Daniels Corporation

Rendering of Daniels Waterfront - City of the Arts, image courtesy of The Daniels Corporation

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Additional information and renderings can be found in our dataBase file for the project, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment using the space provided at the bottom of this page.