Elevate Condos (1333 Weber St E) | 15, 15, 12 & 12 fl | U/C

[taylortbb]

It seems like such a temporary material and just announces to the world that “this is a forgettable building” that nobody really loved when they made it.

I think there's a lot of confusing the tool and the result in this thread.

Most precast buildings are cheap crap, but is that an inherent feature of precast? Could one use precast to make a nice building? It seems to me there's nothing inherently wrong with precast, it just mostly gets used by people that are building cheap crap, and who would build cheap crap by a different method if precast wasn't available.

[tomh009]

I Would like to personally strangle the person responsible for the invention of precast.

For "normal" multi-residential buildings, precast is not inherently any worse or any uglier than on-site concrete. Compare, for example, the Bright Building (precast) with Drewlo (not precast). Poor design can be achieved with any number of construction materials.

[Bjays93]

I drive by this almost every day on my way to UW. Cant believe there was a time when I was acc excited for this project.

[cherrypark]

Whatever company finds a way to make an economical pre-cast panel that doesn't make everything look like Minecraft/Tetris (either colour, shape or otherwise) will have my thanks. Definitely going to be a visual cue of the era.

[Momo26]

It's u.g.l.y.

There I answered for ac3r.

[ac3r]

Thanks! :')

[bSherwin]

Is this the slowest construction project in the region? (maybe Waterloo Park beats it?)
Why is this building taking so much longer to construct?

[neonjoe]

Is this the slowest construction project in the region? (maybe Waterloo Park beats it?)
Why is this building taking so much longer to construct?

Drewlo: Hold my beer..

[jeffster]

Is this the slowest construction project in the region? (maybe Waterloo Park beats it?)
Why is this building taking so much longer to construct?

It's going up fast now.

Barrel Yards in Waterloo has been going since 1998 or something like that. And Drewlo's building on Strasburg is doing 1 floor per year.

[ac3r]

The first tower topped out very recently. They've poured the base of the next one so that should start going up soon. I don't think it's a slow project at all. The base took a while as they dug down really deep for the parking/foundation. But once that was done, the podium went up pretty fast and the tower even faster (the ugly precast helps with that).

[nms]

Barrel Yards in Waterloo has been going since 1998 or something like that. And Drewlo's building on Strasburg is doing 1 floor per year.

I think you might be off by a decade, major earth-moving for the Barrelyards didn't start until 2007. But they still have holes in the ground 15 years later...

[SF22]

Re: why this one is slow-going: rumour is that they haven't been paying bills on time, so tradespeople are constantly getting pulled off the job until the outstanding invoices are paid. Sounds like there are massive money problems with this one, and have been for a while, and that they're over a year behind schedule.

[ZEBuilder]

Re: why this one is slow-going: rumour is that they haven't been paying bills on time, so tradespeople are constantly getting pulled off the job until the outstanding invoices are paid. Sounds like there are massive money problems with this one, and have been for a while, and that they're over a year behind schedule.

There definitely is problems of some kind going on with this building, the building topped out late December or early January, since then there has been no visual progress on the site, I went by in late May and there was not a single trades person on site in the middle of the day. 

Looking at permits they have foundation only permits for Tower B and C, and only have above grade permits for Tower A, looking deeper at the permits applications Tower B and C have had applications for tower construction since 2020 and 2021 so the city is holding something up as well it might not even be just trades.

I know when this project was announced a lot of people on here were skeptical and it seems as if they were right to be.

[Rainrider22]

There was a crane setting up yesterday I assume to take down a crane ? If they take both down then you know something is a miss.

[SF22]

There was a crane setting up yesterday I assume to take down a crane ?  If they take both down then you know something is a miss.

I'm about 95% sure you're right on this one. If you can't pay your tradespeople, you probably aren't paying for your crane rental either.