In order to complete Edmonton’s ICE District, officials turned to Edmonton-based A&B Concrete Pumping (also known as Reach CSG) to handle its particular demands and they turned to their Putzmeister equipment. Photos courtesy of Putzmeister America Inc.
Warming up the ICE District
A&B Concrete Pumping relies on Putzmeister to revamp Edmonton’s downtown
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dmonton’s ICE District — a 25acre development that combines condos, a public plaza, sports, entertainment, retail space, and office space — serves as the heart of downtown for one of the country’s fastest-growing cities. In addition to Rogers Place, which provides home ice for the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, it also includes two underground parkades and three high-rise towers that punctuate the city’s skyline: The City of Edmonton Tower, JW Marriott Edmonton ICE District, and Stantec Tower. As one of Canada’s largest multi-use projects, it has become a living urban district that unites the community and welcomes visitors from all over the world. In order to complete the unique project, ICE District officials turned to Edmonton-based A&B Concrete Pumping (also known as Reach CSG) to handle its particular demands and they turned to their Putzmeister equipment. “The ICE District is, by way of scale,
one of the largest sports and entertainment districts in North America, if not the world,” said Glen Scott, president of real estate at Katz Group, who partnered with the City of Edmonton to bring the ICE District to life. “It’s an extraordinarily large project. You don’t typically see projects like this in North America. You don’t really see them outside of the Middle East or China.” On site, there were five separate MX 34/38Z placing booms; RS 850 column systems; a BSA 14000 HP series trailer pump; a CP 2110 HP truck-mounted line pump; and 56Z-Meter, 47Z-Meter, and 28Z-Meter boom pumps — in order to rise to the challenge. “From our perspective, this was a once-in-a-lifetime project,” said Daryl Dika, corporate asset manager of A&B Concrete Pumping. “It was an excellent opportunity to showcase our strengths and gain unparalleled knowledge and expertise.”
Starting strong Construction began in 2014 with work on Rogers Place. This phase required a variety of pours that consisted of piles, grade beams and walls, slabs on grade, and suspended slabs. It was kicked off with the arena’s first pour — the seating risers — which utilized a Putzmeister 56Z-Meter Truck-Mounted Concrete Boom Pump to give shape to the stadium’s seating capacity of 21,000. “The Putzmeister equipment not only performed, but it was reliable and highly efficient for the project,” said Dika. One of the arena’s most significant slabs — the ice slab — required a 12-hour process with approximately 20 workers pouring more than 320 cubic metres to complete the eight-inch slab. Because Rogers Place is one of the few NHL arenas to sit atop a parkade, another 16 inches of concrete structural slab sits below the ice slab. “There was a lot of engineering that Canadian Concrete Pumper 2020
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