Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/607779
DECEMBER 2015 | 69 entrance was created facing that thor- oughfare but also angled 45 degrees for handy exposure to Granville Mall and a transit station. Beneath the building lies multi-level underground parking and many other service components stretching three city blocks. "It's a real rabbit's war- ren and another world, and during the Eaton's and Sears years it was a task for visitors to figure out where they should be going," says Cheng. "So we designed a central glass entrance for Nordstrom that would be visible no matter where you park." Site work began in November of 2012, and one of the most dynamic aspects of the project was Ledcor Construction Ltd.'s removal of the building's distinc- tive exterior 16-foot by eight-foot white precast concrete panels. "Each panel weighed 17,000 pounds and contributed 50 per cent of the building's dead weight," says Hutchison. To which Cheng adds, "It took Ledcor an entire year to remove them all." The panels were ground up for a new roadway at Langley Airport. Woolf points out that "the site work was really a parallel process in that demolition started before the working drawings commenced, and the working drawings were developed in tandem with construction." Ledcor completed the demolition phase of the project in September of 2013, and an intensive rebuilding and refitting immediately followed with a target completion of late 2015. Intensive collaboration between all parties was required in order for con- struction and the working drawings to occur simultaneously. "At one point our firm had 28 people working on the draw- ings, and every week we had meetings involving as many as 40 key people," says Hutchison, who also credits Revit soft- ware for making the process manageable. Knoepfel notes, "Determining where to locate the elevator bank to get to the offices which run through Nordstrom and the retail all the way to the parkade was ex t remely challeng ing. Even tougher was the fact that there was no space outside of the building for lay- downs. Material delivery had to be co- ordinated very carefully, with some of it stored in the existing loading docks and on various floors, to be shuffled around as the floors underwent development." The grand opening of Nordstrom in the fall of 2015 was applauded by the public and critics, and Cheng cred- its the U.S. retailer for taking a hands- on approach to the project. "They were involved right down to approving each and every type of material," he says. "Understandably, they were as anxious as we were to get things right." Knoepfel concludes, "The opportunity to repurpose a building that changes the face of a city comes around once in a life- time, and we are ecstatic over how every- one worked together, at the top of their game, to pull off this monumental task." A Nordstrom Vancouver / Pacific Centre Redevelopment