WATCH: Calgary is about to see a number of huge high-rises go up in the next few years, making for a dramatic change to the city’s skyline. Doug Vaessen reports.
CALGARY – The Telus Sky construction project is starting with the deepest hole in the city and will end up as one of the tallest buildings—with the help of 50-year-old technology, a crane dubbed “Dirtzilla.”
“We are kind of bringing back an old dinosaur to modern-day construction,” said Jan Gryckiewicz, CEO of Professional Excavators, who is excited about how the building will change Calgary’s skyline.
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“It is unique and absolutely a beautiful, beautiful building. It will be interesting to see what downtown will look like in a few years; this is awesome.”
The excavation is now 10 metres deep, but will reach over 32 metres below the surface.
Joe Binfet of Colliers International Calgary said the building is just one of a large number of sky scrapers soon to be built. That includes Brookfield Place East, which will become the tallest building in Western Canada – just ahead of the Bow.
The construction is happening in spite of low oil continuing to hurt the economy and the city’s vacancy rate.
“We are already seeing a lot of sublease space come on the market. Vacancy has increased and there is downward pressure on rental rates as a result of that,” said Binfet. “Colliers’ last quarterly report had vacancy at 10.7 per cent. I think we are headed to higher vacancy—11 or 12 per cent next quarter.”
Even as developers show caution, they don’t stop; Dirtzilla can fill a truck every six minutes—and it’s not alone.
“Off the top of my head, there are seven new towers set for construction between now and 2017,” said Binfet.
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