Six-Storey Buildings in Alberta
There has been an increase in the number of six-storeys buildings being constructed in Alberta over the last few years. A typical apartment or condo used to be four-storeys in Calgary. Now, almost every development with or without an underground parkade, including rental units or senior housing, has at least six-storeys above the ground.
This is a trend that has happened in both Ontario and British Columbia before and can be connected to three main reasons:
Updated National Building Codes arereleased every four years. The latest edition was released last year which is the base of NBC – 2023 Alberta Edition. The combination changes and updates in 2015, 2019 and 2023 editions of the building code and their adaptation by Alberta allow the builders to build up to six-storeys building with regular wood frames while addressing the code’s requirement for fire protection, structural and seismic design.
The podium and parkade are usually a costly part of the building development and the price of the units increases as you move up in the floors. While the previous strategy was to increase the number of units per building to generate more revenue with four-storeys building, it seems that in the new business model of builders, six-storeys building is the right size to generate optimum revenue without incurring additional costs associated with high-rise buildings.
With the high demand for residential units in Calgary, the viability of taller building has increased. The average selling price of a condo in Calgary has increased ~15. % year-over-year and the forecasts don’t show any sign of slowing down. The goal of the builders is to build as many units as possible in the shortest time. Going vertically allows the builders to use the same plan over and over that reduces permitting time and cost because of the economy of scale.
Based on our experience from other provinces, one of the challenges of this building model is the cost of the foundation. While a four-storeys building can likely be built with conventional shallow footing on a reasonably good soil profile that is common in Calgary, the additional load of a six-storeys buildings makes shallow foundation system marginally acceptable by most Engineers. Another issue that builders are facing more often these days is that most of the good grounds have already taken and their building must be constructed on the available land which may have questionable ground conditions.
One option to address this issue is to support the building on piles, which increases the cost and complexity of construction. An increasingly more common and optimized approach is to use ground improvement to reduce the risk and cost of construction conventional foundations. Menard Canada can help with the second option by evaluation the ground conditions and proposing solutions that fit the purpose of the project. This solution can be compared with other options to make a more informed decision about the foundation system of the building. This collaborative approach has unlocked the value of otherwise challenging development properties by reducing risk and simplifying construction. If the cost and duration of foundation support is impacting your development, we would love to hear from you.
