If you’ve been wondering just what’s going on behind the fences surrounding the new Slave Lake government centre, the short answer is ‘lots’.
Senior Project Manager Rick Zasada of Chandos Construction toured The Leader around the site last week, explaining some of what’s involved in putting together a project of this size, where the crews are at in the construction phase, and why the project is different from others.
The east side, adjacent to Main Street, is where the future public library will be situated. It’s also part of the site most seen by passers by. Behind the mounds of earth, there is roughly 20,000 square feet of new concrete poured, about half of the total poured so far. Close to the sidewalk is a giant water containment tank, also made of concrete.
“The plan is to capture rain water from the whole mall,” said Zasada. “It gets diverted into this tank, and is slowly released back into the town’s storm drainage.”
Like many other Chandos projects, the new government ‘hub’ is built to LEEDS specifications.
Many are familiar with Chandos work at the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation, a building that exceeds the LEEDS standards. While the government centre and library doesn’t sport all of the renewable energy tricks that the BCBC building does, it has kept to specifications regarding waste reduction and conservation.
Much of the material removed from deconstruction of the mall is being reused in the new building with a keen eye to recycling what can’t be reused.
“About 90 per cent of the waste will be recycled and very little will end up in the landfill,” said Zasada. The site and our geography have created their own set of challenges for the Chandos crew.
Unlike most new commercial construction that sees a metal box erected around pilings, with a concrete slab floor poured inside after the shell is built, this project is more like residential construction. Here, concrete slabs are poured first and the building erected on top of that. “We have had a relatively wet few months here,” said Zasada. “The weather would not have stopped concrete work inside of a shell, but in our case it may have caused some minor delays,” he says.
Still, they are mostly on schedule and working hard to get the first of the walls up.
Inside the Sawridge Plaza Mall, a long wall has been erected, drawing a border between the old and the new. The wall does double duty; it keeps the sometimes unsightly construction out of view but more importantly acts as a firestop.
“The wall denotes the new property line. Everything north of here was purchased and the property subdivided. Part of the code requires a four hour firestop wall,” said Zasada, pointing out a thick, cinderblock wall behind layers of drywall that extend a full three feet above the current roof line.
Also noteworthy is the mixed crew Zasada and Chandos have put together. They have done their level best to hire whoever they can locally, resulting in about 15 or 20 Slave Lakers, as well as a few home grown contractors, like Emes Electric. It’s part of the Chandos philosophy.
According to Zasada, there wasn’t much to see just yet. “It’s going to look pretty fancy when the giant Parallam beams are in place” said the manager, referring to the manufactured wood beams that are both visually striking and very strong, allowing for large, open designs. Zasada has good things to say about the folks affected by the construction, too. “Everyone here is really friendly, and the folks managing the mall have been great. If we were trying to do this in West Edmonton Mall, it would be nearly impossible. If we cut off any one entry to a shop for construction, it would be the end of that business. Here, there are several entries into the mall. And, everyone here is a little more laid back,” says the project manager. “So far, we’ve had nothing but positive feedback.”

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