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It has been nearly four years since Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) vacated their King Street retail store for Queen Street, leaving the well situated Entertainment District site poised for a significant redevelopment effort. Purchased by Plaza, the developer is now building a 49-storey mixed-use, but mostly residential condo development, 400 King West, on the site. Designed by BDP Quadrangle, the project started construction last year, with demolition getting underway in the late spring. More recently, the project is now well into construction, with excavation complete and a tower crane installed.
Tracking how the project got to this stage reveals some interesting construction processes that were activated in response to the complex set of site specific circumstances that define projects taking place within the dense urban context.
One of these processes was reported on in an earlier story, describing how the building is repurposing the existing foundation walls of the demolished MEC building. With additional excavation required to carve out the project’s three levels of below grade parking, the installation of shoring walls beneath these existing foundations has been an interesting and technical process to follow, and has appeared to advance in stages so as not to destabilize the foundations of the surrounding buildings.
Another interesting tactic implemented on the confined site to aid in the construction process was the creation of a robust staging platform on the southwest corner of the site. Pictured to the right in the image below, the platform is made of a solid concrete slab reinforced with rebar, and is supported by eight steel piles that were drilled deep into the ground. The platform provides invaluable space at grade level for the storage of materials, and allows the crew to work within the boundaries of its site without overflowing into the street.
With excavation and shoring continuing into the winter months, the pit bottomed out early this year, allowing the crew to move on to the next stage, preparing the base for the tower crane. Rising from a central location in the pit, the image below captures the installation of the crane, which took place on January 9th. Not pictured is the crane’s boom, which was successfully added on shortly after.
With the crane in place, the last two months of work have been focussed on the early stages of concrete forming for the tower’s lowest levels. In the image below, we can see that a number of concrete columns have already been poured and set, while forms are in place to continue creating more, beginning on the east side of the site. On the left of the frame, we can see rebar being laid in position for the eventual pouring of the building’s first concrete slab.
Concrete work will continue to advance over the next few months, and could be expected to emerge above grade by the end of the summer. After that, the tower will have another 49-storeys to complete before it can deliver on its promise of 612 new condo units with at-grade retail.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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UrbanToronto has a research service, UrbanToronto Pro, that provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area—from proposal through to completion. We also offer Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
