“The Paramount has been one of the highlights of my career,” states Mike Wurm, senior construction manager with Keltic (Canada) Developments Ltd. “I cannot think of any other project in the Vancouver market that met its schedule this well during this recent challenging period.”
Wurm is speaking of the nearly 600-unit, four-tower mixed-use development in the heart of Richmond, B.C. that was conceived and led by Vancouver-based Keltic.
The complex project’s financial viability required not only maintaining but advancing the schedule from the original target of May 2022, to a phased occupancy approach with Phase I being turned over in October 2021.
Success of this project required value engineering, careful consideration of architectural features and materials and strong technical skills. And keeping everything going amidst pandemic constraints followed by intensifying supply chain issues required expert project management and coordination of subcontractors and trades.
The Paramount comprises three 15-storey residential towers totalling 533 for-sale units plus 27 low-income market rental units, a 12-storey office tower and multiple retail units at ground level, built atop a four-level parkade (two below-grade and two above-grade) totalling 618 stalls, with a gross floor area of 625,000 square feet all finished to LEED Silver equivalent.
Notable additional features include a state-of-the-art, $13 million, LEED Gold, 19,000-square-foot early childhood development hub, a large courtyard, a district heating and energy distribution hub, and a spectacular back-painted glass art installation spanning six storeys by Indigenous artist Thomas Cannell of the Musqueam First Nations.
Meeting schedule on The Paramount was a top concern for Keltic in seeking a builder, says Wurm. Graham was selected through negotiation as general contractor for the stipulated sum, $267 million contract.
“Midway through the first year of construction, COVID hit,” Wurm recalls. “We didn’t lose anything off the schedule, we worked right through it, and that’s a testament to Graham, how well they staffed their team, and all their subcontractors.”
Located at Richmond’s main No. 3 Road and Cook Street intersection, across from City Hall and at the terminus of the new elevated CanadaLine LRT, the project’s design team had been “tasked with doing a landmark building, something really memorable, something the city could be proud of,” recalls Amela Brudar, a principal at GBL Architects.
Leaning glass with a dramatic “inward cut” became the office tower’s most prominent aesthetic element, while the residential and retail sections had a number of other features.
Early contractor involvement (ECI) aims to improve process efficiencies and project outcomes. Graham’s ECI effort included 3D pre-modelling to create a constructability methodology, making sure that drawings encompassed all construction issues, and numerous meetings to identify clashes and resolve problems.
“The project was highly collaborative among everyone involved,” notes James Cassano, a Senior Project Manager at Graham. Among other benefits of this approach was generating the confidence needed to start early procurement and stockpile materials nearby, which in turn helped keep construction on schedule.
Today, with The Paramount sold out and in full operation, Keltic and GBL look back on the project with great satisfaction.
“It was a very positive experience with Graham, and I can’t emphasize that enough, especially because that is not all that common between architects and construction companies,” says Brudar. “They’re well organized, everything we needed to do our job in terms of submissions, they had when we needed, on a very complex project. In terms of execution, it was a very competently run site and an outstanding performance on Graham’s part.”
Adds Wurm: “From a management standpoint the greatest strength of Graham is the agency the company instills in every employee to make things part of their responsibility, to go out and seek solutions to problems, and not let the issue go until they have a solution that benefits the project.
