New Westminster waterfront full of surprises for developer

Bosa Properties anticipated some surprises when it dug into its new development on New Westminster’s waterfront – but fish weren’t part of the plan.

Earlier this year, crews got to work preparing the site at 1000 Quayside Dr. for the new RiverSky development, never anticipating they’d arrive at work to find minnows swimming in pools of water on the construction site during a time of high water on the Fraser River. RiverSky will include two residential towers, townhouses facing 10th Street, at-grade retail and six levels of parking – including two underground levels, with one of them being built below the water level.

“We are working with the water table, to put the water level down,” Wayne Vickers, development manager for Bosa Properties, told residents during a May 19 visit to the site. “Ideally, we started at six levels above grade, but that wasn’t what the city wanted.”

Vickers said “there are always surprises when you start digging” and that’s proven to be true at the waterfront site, especially when working on a former wharf near the riverfront.

“The river goes up and down,” said Gino Matino, senior project manager for Axiom Builders. “There are days when this is dry. Four hours later, it will be full of water.”

Matino said testing was done via boreholes on the site prior to construction, but it didn’t detect any wood pilings so the developer had “no idea” they were buried underground.

“The quantity was shocking. The whole site had wood piles,” Matino said. “They were everywhere.”

Matino said the site should have been excavated by January, but site conditions have put the project about four months behind schedule.

“Pile driving should have started in January,” he noted. “They’re starting in June.”

Matino said crews have completed the excavation on the east half of the site and are digging down to that level on the west half of the site. They’ll also have to dig down an additional eight feet in locations where the towers’ elevators will go.

Thirty-foot-long wood piles on the east half of the site are now being exposed and must be removed. About 500 new steel piles filled with concrete, ranging from 60 to 90 feet in length, will be driven into the site to provide structural stability for the development.

Pile driving was expected to begin at the end of May but was delayed by “de-watering” requirements at the site. Area residents can expect to hear a lot of banging as pile driving will last about four months.

After the piles are installed on the site, crews will pour reinforced concrete into the pit. Once the vertical walls are in place around the site, they’ll be waterproofed and construction can begin.

“We plan to erect a crane in the middle of July to start work on the foundations,” Matino said. “It will take until February when we are at Level 6, where we start pouring concrete for the actual towers themselves.”

Just the facts:

* Tower 1 has 285 units in 33 storeys and Tower 2 has 234 units in 28 storeys.
* The project is entirely sold out, which means that instead of phasing construction over the coming years, they can both be built and completed by the end of 2018.
* 480 parking stalls are provided.
* The development will provide 80 stalls for use by River Market. The site formerly provided surface parking for the market.
* The project includes a breezeway where people can walk through the development to access to the waterfront.
* Selling features: close to the river, transit and neighbourhood amenities.
* Employment will reach a peak of 300 to 400 employees about two years from now, when finishes are being done inside. About 25 people are currently working on the project.