Ex-salt depot blooms anew
[attach]1428[/attach]April showers are set to bring more than flowers this spring in Davisville.
Coming into bloom over the coming months will be the Toronto Water customer service centre at 275 Merton St., a massively renovated building, featuring a green roof and landscaping to be watered using stored rain water, as it nears completion.
The building is one of Toronto’s first public buildings to follow the city’s recently implemented green development standards, which include a bylaw requiring some buildings to have a green roof.
The job was given to Toronto Water project manager Edwin Ayson. His challenge: to oversee the job of transforming a former road salt storage and loading facility — basically a concrete shell of a building with an adjoining salt storage dome — into a modern office featuring the latest and greatest in green building technology.
Transforming this derelict facility into the model of green building that it’s about to be was no small task said Ayson.
Construction began in November 2008 with a budget of $6 million and a projected completion date of July 2009. The builders missed that date and need additional capital to complete the green roof, but Ayson doesn’t seem to shaken up by these facts.
“There’s a lot of unknown because it’s a renovation,” he said. “You don’t really know, once you open up a wall, what you’re going to find there.”
Ayson said he is particularly proud of the greenness of the building and said that going forward every project he’ll contribute to for the city will reflect a similar commitment to the environment.
These requirements include the as-yet-incomplete green roof and the use of a grey water system.
“We collect the water from the roof and instead of draining it we have a collection tank. We filter the water and use it in the urinals and toilets,” he said. “This will be the first (municipal) building (in Toronto) that utilizes that.”
In winter and in dry times the tanks are replenished by city water, but Ayson couldn’t say what percentage of the water used at the facility would be rain and what would be tapped from the system. He also couldn’t produce any other figures for expected energy savings or cuts to emissions that will result from the building’s green features. According to Ayson, they simply don’t know yet how much the green efforts will pay off.
“We have installed a lot of monitoring devices so we can see moving forward how we can quantify everything.”
In the early going Ayson and his crew also had to deal with neighbours who didn’t want to put up with the noise of construction.
“At the start we got lots of complaints,” he said. “We told them to go to the website of (councillor) Michael Walker.”
On Walker’s website was a description of what the old salt depot was to become.
“Instead of sitting as an abandoned building now it’s turned into a very nice facility. It is different. It is an architectural gem,” said Ayson. “The people (are) very happy.”
You can view the blurb on my website, at http://www.michaelwalker.ca/Policy/environment.htm
This summer, the City of Toronto will be opening the doors to a new “green” office building at 275 Merton Street (South of Eglinton Ave. E. at Mount Pleasant Rd.) Since November 2008, the City has been renovating a former salt facility into a new Toronto Water Customer Service Centre, using Council-mandated policies for site beautification and Green Development Standards (GDS). The new building will have a green roof (including conversion of the former Transportation Salt Silo and a deck for viewing the green initiatives), a grey water system that reuses rain water for toilet flushing and plant watering, water efficient landscape with low-watering plants, low flush faucets and toilets, and energy efficient lighting.
The building will be able to accommodate 120 staff and will be used by the Service Programs Unit, which is responsible for the delivery of indoor/outdoor water efficiency programs and managing grants/funding/subsidy programs. These programs include: toilet and washer rebates, drain grants, basement flooding subsidies, sewer rebates, industrial rate initiatives and many others.
Quick facts on 275 Merton St.:
Operation: Toronto Water Customer Service Centre
Opening: Summer 2009 (July/August)
Hours: Mon. to Fri. 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Cost of construction: $6 million (with scheduled completion in July 2009)