Intercity Area Of Thunder Bay Continues to Grow With New Brick and BMO
by Scott A. Sumner
www.thunderbaybusiness.ca
When you are in the area of the Intercity Shopping Centre you will see the new BMO and the Brick structures going up as well as a future Swiss Chalet. “ It was originally the B & B stone property which Tom Jones Corporation owned and sold to Shindico Realty who became the developer. They put together a package which we tendered on and were successful on the site works package, the BMO and the Brick building shells. BMO will have Pradal Construction complete their interior work and the Brick has there own interior fit up company,” said Parker Jones of Tom Jones Corporation. “ We started by stripping the overburden off the site
which was done by Bruno's Contracting. We then we did driving of 80 foot piles. Intercity seems to be predominantly an area in Thunder Bay where you need to have piles to support the structures. We then did the concrete foundations, structural steel, the deck and roof, exterior board and studs with the sub trades. It was an accelerated schedule which traditionally would have taken 7 months to complete but we finished much quicker. There is brick on BMO and on the Brick a EIFS finished system. Each building has different levels of finishes.”
“It was challenging due to the time of the year with a wet fall and lots of snow and extreme weather this winter. We really had no breaks in the weather,” said John Jones of Tom Jones Corporation. “ If the opportunity was there we would have put in a proposal to own the
buildings ourselves as we are constantly putting in proposals. The last 15 years has been a good run with developments from national companies like the Walmart area, Thunder Centre and now Shindico. First Gulf are looking to put a development into the Innova Park site as well.”
St Ignatius
Tom Jones Corporation recently completed an addition to the St Ignatius School located near Boulevard park. Irwin Kusmich of the Tom Jones Corporation was the Project Manager on the St Ignatius project. He has been with the Tom Jones company for 30 years starting right
after college where he took the 3 year architectural technology program at Confederation College.
“ St Ignatius was a pretty neat job. The existing facility was an older school. We created new labs, an exercise room and the cafetorium which is an open space where they eat as well as act as an auditorium. There is a nice double storey siting area for the kids that linked the
old with the new. It is quite a nice structure. The initial project started out at $3.7 million and we were awarded additional work for a total of $5 million plus,” said Irwin Kusmich. “The main challenge was the time to complete the work. The kids were in there studying. We created our own enclosure on the site and had upwards of 25 sub trades working.”
“ In my job you tender the project, submit a bid, get low bid and then award of the contract. Then you have to assemble your pricing , get in contracts with the trades who were low and get your field superintendent on site with trailers and washrooms. I am dealing with the paper work, pricing changes, purchase orders and have many phones calls and emails. I handle all the paper work in the office and we have a site foreman. You go to the site for meetings with the architect and engineers.” said Kusmich.
“ The site had not a lot of room to get cranes in. We ran into machinery that couldn’t be run at certain times. The kids put up with a lot with the concrete compaction all the machinery running. I think the result is a beautiful looking structure,” said Kusmich. “The subtrades
worked well together. We were able to get the project on time even with the large changes with the contract and about $1.5 million of additional work. They took advantage of having the sub trades and us on site so did additional work to be less disruptive on the students.”
“ Any kind of a renovation is a challenge taking the old and the new. I think they did an exceptional job of taking advantage of the difference in elevations on the site. The building is functional as well. Mr Habib, the architect on the project is very creative.” said John Jones.
