PAGE B6 – July 2009 – The GTA Construction Report
Hilton Garden Inn Toronto aims for
LEED certification
STAFF WRITER – Special to The GTA Construction Report
The new Hilton Garden Inn Toronto Airport hotel has set out to at-
tain high environmental construction standards, while overcoming
challenging site conditions to achieve success.
Sub trades and consultants for the project say the $29 million proj-
ect is a perfect example of how a building should be constructed.
The 15-storey, 224-room hotel opened in April, completing a proj-
ect that started with site selection in 2006, says Vahe Kouyoumdjian,
P. Eng., at the Kingslake Group, which provided project management
services for the owner, Manga Hotels (Airport) Inc.
The hotel is aiming for LEED certification, a challenge to achieve
for commercially-focused projects. “I don’t know whether it will be
the lowest level of LEED or Silver LEED,” Kouyoumdjian said.
The Hilton Garden Inn Toronto Airport expects to meet and exceed
the requirements of LEED Canada in the areas of: Sustainable site se-
lection and development density; energy efficiency, water efficiency
and fundamental building commissioning; recycling of all paper, alu-
minum, plastics and glass; organic dry-cleaning services; construction
waste management; use of regional materials; 100 per cent non-smok-
ing building; low-emitting material usage; controllability of systems
(thermal comfort and daylight usage); innovations in design; organic
menu items and a LEED-accredited professional, Pal Ahuja, P.Eng.,
LEED
®
A-P of Millennium International Engineering in team.
Kouyoumdjian said Manga retained Chamberlain Architects to
oversee the design of the hotel, as well as structural and design engi-
neers. Kingslake and Manga also oversaw about 60 trade contractors
directly.
Hilton Garden Inns, like other major chain hotels, has exacting stan-
dards to ensure quality and consistency within the brand. The spe-
cialized knowledge for hotel work means that architecture, Mechanical
& Electrical design and construction is focused within companies like
Kingslake and Chamberlain & Millennium who know the field and
understand the requirements.
“We’ve become more of a specialist in hotel construction,” he said.
“there are a multitude of little things and construction issues that if you
have dealt with them before, it makes it much easier for future projects.
“For example, consider electronic door openers,” Kouyoumdjian
said. “If you are going to start researching stuff from scratch it may
take somebody weeks of work. For us, we’ve gone through it and
know the technology, so we only need to make two phone calls to solve
the issues.”
The hotel is 15 stories above ground, with two stories, mainly the
parking structure, below ground. It has 224 guest rooms, a wide array
of meeting and board rooms, a swimming pool two stories high in the
basement, with a fitness centre, and a business/computer centre, Kouy-
oumdjian said.
“The design of hotel is breathtaking,” he said. Chaimberlain Ar-
chitects of Burlington, which specializes in hotel projects, adapted the
design to suit the site.
The biggest challenge for the hotel, said Kouyoumdjian, is the site.
Most Hilton Garden Inns are designed to fit on suburban lots with lots
of space and parking. The Toronto Airport hotel needed to be built
higher on a smaller land area.
Then, when excavation started, the builders found they had prob-
lems because of weak soils. “The westerly face of the sloped excava-
tion did not stand on a open-cut basis,” he said. “We had to do some
shoring.”
This extra work delayed the construction, but once the building
reached ground level, things moved much more quickly, as each floor
could be constructed using the same cookie-cutter template.
Sub trades and suppliers said they enjoyed working with Kingslake
and are pleased with the results they achieved on the project.
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