Last week, Le Cathcart Restaurants et Biergarten officially opened its 35,000-sf food court within the esplanade at Place Ville Marie, a revitalized central mall in downtown Montreal, Quebec.
The food court—whose 15 kiosks have seating for more than 1,000 patrons and include three restaurants—is adjacent to a shopping center, and positioned under a 630-sm (6,782-sf) all-glass roof that is part of the Place Ville Marie’s new entrance pavilion. The 45x15-m roof—the first project in Quebec for the façade construction specialist Seele, and its fourth in Canada—is 1.2m above ground level.
The roof component, which was completed in December 2018, consists of 15m-long by 2.5m-wide insulating glass panels weighing up to 5.6 tons each. Eight-ply laminated glass beams, also 15m long, support the glass panels. The corbels supporting the beams are hidden in the walls, presenting the illusion that the roof is hovering above ground.
The roof is bookended by entrance canopies that cantilever up to 4.2m beyond the entrance facades. The canopies are supported by 14-ply glass beams. The roof took six months to complete, and had to deal with a confined jobsite space and, in its latter stages, Montreal’s wintry weather. It required a 2.5-ton vacuum lifter with 60 suction cups to place the glass units. To support a mobile crane for installing the glass, the existing structure needed to be strengthened.
Part of the 1,000-seat food court underneath Place Ville Marie's glass roof.
The client, real estate investment firm Ivanhoè Cambridge, presented this project for the first time last May at Façade Tectonics in Toronto. “Every project has its own challenges, and the handling of extra-large glass needed careful preparation,” recalls Michael Steinhuelb, Vice President of Seele Canada. “Quality, safety, and timeliness [were] our prime considerations in installation, and we learned a lot about extreme winter installation … that we can apply to other projects.”
The building team for Place Ville Marie’s revitalization includes Sid Lee Architecture (which conceived the project with A5 Hospitality) and Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architectes (architects), Pomerleau (GC), NCK (main contractor), and NCK (engineer) BPA (electromechanical engineer), Lightmotion (lighting consultant), and BC2 (landscape architect). Seele provided design, production, and installation of the glass roof and canopies. The $200 million revitalization of the esplanade is part of Projet Nouveau Centre, Ivanhoe Cambridge’s $1 billion-plus vision for downtown Montreal, which is consolidating four major projects: Place Ville Marie (originally co-designed by I.M. Pei and Henry N. Cobb), Montreal Eaton Centre, the 27-story office building Maison Manuvie, and the 950-room Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
MulvannyG2 Architecture wins “Best Mixed-use Development—Future” award
MulvannyG2 Architecture’s project, Aquapearl in Taipei, Taiwan, was honored by Cityscape Asia 2009 as the “Best Mixed-use Development -Future” on May 20, 2009 at the annual conference in Singapore.
| Aug 11, 2010
AECOM, Arup, Gensler most active in commercial building design, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 100 Commercial Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Turner Building Cost Index dips nearly 4% in second quarter 2009
Turner Construction Company announced that the second quarter 2009 Turner Building Cost Index, which measures nonresidential building construction costs in the U.S., has decreased 3.35% from the first quarter 2009 and is 8.92% lower than its peak in the second quarter of 2008. The Turner Building Cost Index number for second quarter 2009 is 837.
| Aug 11, 2010
AGC unveils comprehensive plan to revive the construction industry
The Associated General Contractors of America unveiled a new plan today designed to revive the nation’s construction industry. The plan, “Build Now for the Future: A Blueprint for Economic Growth,” is designed to reverse predictions that construction activity will continue to shrink through 2010, crippling broader economic growth.
| Aug 11, 2010
PCL Construction, HITT Contracting among nation's largest commercial building contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 50 Commercial Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Webcor, Hunt Construction lead the way in mixed-use construction, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 30 Mixed-Use Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Report: Fraud levels fall for construction industry, but companies still losing $6.4 million on average
The global construction, engineering and infrastructure industry saw a significant decline in fraud activity with companies losing an average of $6.4 million over the last three years, according to the latest edition of the Kroll Annual Global Fraud Report, released today at the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2009 Annual Meeting in Boston. This new figure represents less than half of last year’s amount of $14.2 million.
| Aug 11, 2010
First CityCenter projects earn LEED Gold
CityCenter announced today that it has received three Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEED Gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council for: 1) ARIA Resort's hotel tower; 2) ARIA Resort's convention center and theater; 3) Vdara Hotel. ARIA and Vdara will open in December on the Las Vegas Strip and are the first of CityCenter's developments to be LEED certified.
| Aug 11, 2010
Whiting-Turner, EMJ Corp. top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 40 largest retail contractors
A ranking of the Top 40 Retail Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
