Located in Alberta’s Capital, the Edmonton Forestry Building is a government office building featuring ten stories and 129,680 square feet of office and meeting space amongst various amenities. Driven by the opportunity to increase space efficiency and relocate departments that had previously been displaced by a fire, the Government of Alberta made the decision to renovate the space to bring the existing building up to current standards.
Williams Engineering (WE) provided mechanical, electrical and structural services for the restack of the buildings’ ten floors. The project was separated into three tranches, with design and construction staggered to accommodate a phased construction approach. First, the floors were demolished back to the existing base building. Floors ten through seven were then constructed, followed by floors three to six and finally floors one and two to complete construction. Floors three through ten consisted of a dedicated open office and meeting space for various government departments. Floor two posed unique design challenges as it currently hosts the Alberta Wildfire Command Center and requires a large amount of dedicated equipment space. The project required a new generator to be added to provide emergency power to the second floor. The vital nature of the equipment requires the ability for 24/7 uninterrupted operations.
Structural services provided by WE included a review of the floor loading for high-density files, and the review and design details for the movable wall system. Our mechanical scope included a complete design of heating, plumbing and fire protection systems for all floors within the building. The electrical design included new LED lighting for all floors, a new lighting control system, as well as power and communications to accommodate the new workspaces in addition to security and life safety systems. Our electrical team also designed the addition of the new generator.
Completed in September of 2020, construction was thoughtfully planned and staged to be carried out through the COVID-19 pandemic. This restack was a major renovation to the building originally constructed in 1979, reconfiguring the space for increased efficiency and maximized workflow. The project team completed this design with a significant dedication to sustainability, including after-hours automation systems for lighting and HVAC controls and achieving BOMA BEST Gold Certification.
