Some Calgarians are pretty excited about what’s going to come out of a major demolition project in the city.
It’s all about finding a sustainable way to get people riding high on a new wave using steel that’s being salvaged during demolition of the long-standing Campus Centre at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).
Able Demolition Services is dismantling the centre, with the steel from the site being donated to the Alberta River Surfing Association (ARSA).
ARSA will use it to build a new adjustable wave on the Kananaskis River, about an hour’s drive west of Calgary. The site is near an existing wave ARSA created in 2014.
“It’s great,” Able’s Ed Meyer said. “We’re not using new materials, we’re using all that stuff that essentially goes right from the building into the wave.”
It’s an important step towards the new wave project.
“That’s pretty much all the steel that we’re going to need to build the structure that’s going to go at the bottom of the river,” ARSA’s Vinicius Gravina da Rocha said. “It’s a huge contribution.”
SAIT officials say it fits in with their policy of carrying out construction projects in sustainable ways.
As they prepare the demolition area for the new campus centre planned for the site, SAIT officials are taking steps to reuse as many pieces of the old centre as they can.
“Old arena parts and components, bleacher seats, things like that: everything we could salvage was donated to charities and organizations within Alberta,” SAIT’s Tanya Tam said.
Meyer says that fits in well with the eco-friendly approach he tries to apply every demolition.
“Ninety-five per cent of what was here (at the SAIT site) has been recycled,” Meyer said.
ARSA plans to begin work on its Kananaskis River project in September 2024, with the aim to have the new adjustable wave is up and running by the summer of 2025.
“It’s amazing to think that things that were at SAIT are going to turn into a wave,” Gravina da Rocha said. “so it’s really good.”