Quartier Concordia

[MTLskyline]

Looks like one of the options for installing the new escalators is making a big hole on the outside of the hall building. Will that mean that it will have to be entirely re-cladded?

 

The Hall Hole

How Else Do You Get New Escalators into the Hall Building?

 

Justin Giovannetti — September 14, 2010

 

Construction at Concordia shows no signs of slowing down as the university will start a two-year, $14 million plan next month to replace the 17 infamously defective escalators of the Hall building.

 

Once work is completed in December 2012, Jean Pelland, Concordia’s director of projects, promises that the Hall building will be cleaner, brighter and more modern.

 

“The only comment I’ve received from students and the community is that the escalators don’t work well, everyone wants them changed,” said Pelland.

 

When asked if the escalators were problematic Pelland chuckled, “More than that, at the top they aren’t even working, they are very old equipment and we need parts, so we take parts from the upper levels. Between [floors] 11 and 9 it doesn’t work. It’s too old.”

 

Opened in 1966, the Hall building’s escalators have been plagued with mechanical problems for more than 40 years. The company that was installing the escalators went out of business before the building was finished, leading to an immediate lack of spare parts.

 

Cannibalizing parts and a heroic level of MacGyvering by the university’s staff has only gone so far. It is not uncommon for more than half of the 12-floor building’s escalators to be broken at the same time.

 

Plans to replace the escalators have been floating around since the early 90s, but have been rejected due to the high cost involved.

 

With the project currently in the tendering phase, two different construction methods may be used to replace the escalators.

 

The more traditional method would involve cutting a hole in the side of the Hall building. According to Pelland, the university has also asked for tenders using a modular method, whereby the escalators would be transported in pieces into the building. The pieces would then be installed on site.

 

“We need to keep the building open, students still need to go to class, so it is a very complicated project,” said Pelland. “If the market offers us at a reasonable price for building with small pieces, we will use it. It may cost a little bit more for the equipment, but our schedule will be shorter.”

 

Replacing the escalators at the core of a building used by 10,000 students daily is a challenge, especially since asbestos will need to be removed, so the project will work in five-month phases where two floors will be replaced at a time.

 

Floors 10 to 12 will see the first work this October.

 

The escalators from the ninth floor to the 12th floor, currently only go up because the university ran out of money while the Hall building was being built. With the renovation, they will also go down.

 

“We are also redesigning the entire design of the part of the lobby, there are more people coming from the tunnel, so we need to change the flow,” said Pelland. A second escalator will be added to the side of the Tim Horton’s, to the left of the security office.

 

With planning for the project underway for the past year, Pelland said the largest work, from the lobby to the fourth floor, will be done over the summer.

 

Students will need to wait until tendering ends on Sept. 22 to know if they will have to welcome a hole in the side of the Hall building.

 

This article originally appeared in The Link Volume 31, Issue 05, published September 14, 2010.

 

 

 

 

http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/267

[Cyrus]

I wouldn't mind if they recladded the Hall building... at ground level, it is quite nice. But when you look up... dayum that is an ugly building!

 

I don't know why they would need to cannibalize parts, they have the EDML in the basement... just take the broken piece down there and machine yourself a new one. They should make Hall escalator improvements a Capstone project for the engineers

[brainiac]

Broken escalators always remind me of that Mitch Hedberg joke:

 

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You would never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg

[Alexcaban]

They just added another big C next to the EV building on Saint Cat!

Now I know what they are going to be used for!!! A Map of the campus

Modifié 28 septembre 2010 par Alexcaban

[MTLskyline]

^ I noticed that those "C" things light up at night!

 

More news concerning the re-cladding of the GM building (and a possible re-cladding of the Faubourg tower??)

 

More Construction on Campus

$14 Million Project to Reclad GM Begins in March

 

Christopher Curtis — November 15, 2010

 

Two Concordia buildings will undergo intensive repairs this spring.

 

A $14 million project to reclad the university’s GM Building will begin this March and likely last until the end of 2011.

 

Renovations on the western wall of the Faubourg Tower are also slated for March and will last until November.

 

“The GM Building is almost 50 years old and it isn’t very energy efficient,” said Peter Bolla, the Associate VP of Facilities Management at Concordia. “The windows are single pane and it gets cold in the winter.”

 

The 46-year-old GM Building will have its walls completely torn down and replaced with glass and steel to resemble the adjacent EV and MB buildings.

 

“The building badly needed repairs [and] we wanted to make it fit in with the modern looking buildings on campus,” said Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota.

 

Beyond esthetic renovations, the GM’s elevator cabins and heating system will be replaced. The building’s lobby will also be expanded to include a waiting area.

 

Decarel, a general contracting firm that built a $705 million expansion to Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport, will be undertaking the GM project.

 

The company has already met with the university twice to determine how to undertake the project while minimizing disturbances caused by construction. Decarel will begin work on the GM’s south and east walls in March.

 

“The north and west walls will cause complications,” said Jean Pelland, Concordia’s director of projects. “The south and east should be easier so we’ll begin there.”

 

Meanwhile, at the foot of the Faubourg Tower, netting is being installed as a precautionary measure in the lead up to the replacement of the bricks on the building’s western wall. According to Bolla some of the brickwork on the Faubourg Tower, which was built in the 1980s, is eroding but is “not a cause for concern.”

 

“Some buildings age better than others and the Faubourg hasn’t aged very well,” said Bolla.

 

The university is consulting with an engineer and conducting quality control tests to determine a budget and method for replacing the bricks.

 

“We might not even be replacing the bricks with bricks,” said Pelland. “We’re looking into other materials.”

http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/652

[Chris1989]

Amazing news; as a Concordia student, this is great to see!

[Cataclaw]

For over a decade Concordia has been a never-ending construction zone, but students are pretty much used to it. When everything is eventually finished in the coming years, campus is going to be outright amazing!

 

Best thing ever : Guy metro-Hall building tunnel. (Although i wonder why only one side of the tunnel is finished.. the other is still bare concrete!)

[Chris1989]

The bare side of the tunnel is supposed to feature art! I guess they got lazy at putting it up lol I'm sure sooner or later it'll go up. Concordia is quickly becoming one of the most advanced and beautiful universities in Canada.

[Cataclaw]

Indeed!

 

It feels like so much has been done but there's actually so much left to come...

 

-Metro building recladding

-Hall building floor improvements until they're all done (they're working on the 10th right now)

-Faubourg improvements

-Sidewalks and street infrastructure near the hall / library buildings to match what's been done further down the street

-Finishing the bike path on de Maisonneuve (it's temporary concrete blocks for now)

-Future (student center) building planned for the parking lot next to the Tim Hortons

-Hall building escalator complete replacement including widening/redoing some of the passages and improvements to the lobby

[Rocco]

I am always amazed at the amount of filth covering the area of the downtown Concordia Campus, especially at Guy-De Maisonneuve corner. Even with the new exterior concrete tiles and urban landscape, the sidewalks are so filthy it looks like the improvements were made decades ago already. The new seats installed next to the GM building are always full of garbage. Although it's true that the area is very densely populated, Concordia students seem to be very trashy, even by Montreal's standards.

Modifié 17 novembre 2010 par Rocco