65 King St E, Toronto Ontario

Client: Carttera
Architect/Engineer: WZMH / Smith & Anderson
Mechanical Contract Value: $23,000,000
Size: 560,000 sq. ft.
Completion: 2022 Currently under construction

Project Description
65 King Street East is a next generation office tower in Toronto’s downtown core. Its 18 storeys have 400,000 square feet of usable office and retail space along with four levels of underground parking.

Background
Carttera, the developer/owner, made the decision early in the planning phase to use Design Assist methodology for the mechanical and electrical scope of work for the build. Onyx Mechanical joined the team during early construction document development and completed the design and review in partnership with Smith and Anderson. The mechanical cost was negotiated for all Design Assist and construction activities.

Project Scope
Project mechanical components include site generated chilled and hot water delivered to individual compartment units on each floor which in turn feed a raised floor delivery system. The building core contains the compartment units, mechanical shafts, fresh air shaft, core washrooms and universal washrooms every third floor. Also a dedicated tenant condenser loop complete with cooling tower and all required accessories.

Outcome/Results

Adopting mechanical Design Assist proved to be beneficial from both a cost and a schedule perspective. Onyx was able to complete over 90% of the design co-ordination while the design team continued with drawing production. Upon completion of the IFC drawings, only owner added items were added to the cost of the negotiated contract.

In addition to the typical Design Assist role, our early integration allowed us to negotiate all major equipment well ahead of general tendering and avoid several cost increases to the owner (had securing the equipment waited an additional year).

With construction of the building underway, Google was signed as the tenant for the entire office space. Onyx was able to leverage past experience and pivot our design coordination quickly to incorporate many Google requested changes. Some of these included gender-neutral washrooms with substantial piping riser changes. A tenant-dedicated condenser loop with cooling tower, and an additional make up air unit. All integrated into the build with little or no impact to the schedule, as maintaining project milestone dates was crucial for Carttera and Google. The cost savings for quickly altering the core washroom design while the building was already under construction was enormous.