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Edmonton EXPO Centre Rehabilitation

As part of its ambitious sustainable building policies, the City of Edmonton has set a goal for all its existing buildings to be carbon neutral by 2050. As one of the City’s largest and most energy intensive facilities, the Edmonton EXPO Centre is undergoing a retrofit to improve its energy performance and support the City’s emissions neutral goals. The project team was tasked with utilizing the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) project delivery model to maximize value to the client in upgrading this facility.

At a Glance

City of Edmonton
Edmonton, AB
Government
522,000 SF
City of Edmonton (Client & Owner) ACI Architecture (Architect)Delnor Construction (General Contractor)
  • Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) Coaching Team

This project was begun by EcoAmmo Sustainable Consulting. As of May 1, 2024, EcoAmmo has joined Stok.

The Challenge

Stok was engaged as the IPD coach to guide the client through their first IPD project, as well as help the team build the roadmap for IPD as it is applied to retrofit projects and decarbonization. Specifically, Stok:

  • Facilitated the development of an IPD retrofit process, supported by tools built by ACI Architects Inc.
  • Facilitated the project kick-off to ensure team alignment and continued with onboarding of hundreds of team members throughout the project.
  • Delivered monthly site engagement sessions to ensure continuity of big room culture into the job site.
  • Helped facilitate discussions leading to the creation of a roadmap of upgrades by CIMA+ aligned with the City’s goal for all City-owned buildings to be emissions neutral by 2050.

By the Numbers

Projected annual cost savings from utility and carbon tax cost avoidance
$390,000CAD
Annual emissions prevented from upgrades (equivalent to more than 14 million cars removed from roads or planting over 90,000 trees annually)
5,492MTCO2e
Less cost and 60% faster in achieving project’s design milestone compared to 3 City non-IPD retrofits delivered at same time
40%
Rooftop solar array (largest in Canada)
5GW

The Solution

IPD RETROFIT PROCESS AND TOOL DEVELOPMENT

As one of the first IPD retrofit projects in Canada and the first IPD project for the City of Edmonton, it was important to go slow at the start and develop and agree to processes and tools to support how we would deliver this type of project before jumping in. The Stok IPD coaching team facilitated these early co-creation sessions and crafted visual flow charts and graphics to aid in building alignment around what the team agreed was a best path forward. In the end, Stok created process flow graphics, developed accountability and metric tracking to keep the team accountable, and worked with the general contractor and architect to build one central scope spreadsheet that became the pivotal tool for the entire approach.

VALIDATION REPORT AS DECARBONIZATION ROADMAP

A unique aspect of the IPD process is the Validation phase where team members spend time upfront to run scenarios, iterate calculations, and align business plans before confirming that the owner’s project objectives can be met. As IPD coaches, Stok facilitated this early scenario planning in order to break free of the “like-for-like replacement” mentality and – due to the successful collaborative efforts between all poly party team members, including Stok, ACI Architects Inc., CIMA+, SMP, Delnor, AltaPro, ICON Industrial, Eng-Spire, and Collins – these discussions led to a roadmap aligned with the project budget, deferred maintenance plans, and the City’s emissions neutral policies. This was the first time the City received such a report on a retrofit project, which they described as game changing.

COMMUNICATING RESULTS EARLY AND OFTEN

Since this was the City of Edmonton’s first IPD project, tracking, recording, and communicating results of the project early and often was key for management and council to build trust in the delivery method. Stok IPD coaches crafted tools to keep the team accountable to recording results and co-authored an IPD briefing report with the owner to aid in awareness and education of IPD.

This IPD briefing document went a step further and compared four retrofit projects all concurrently being executed by the city – three design-build projects in addition to the EXPO Centre, which used IPD. The EXPO Centre had 280% more scope and was able to reach the City’s design milestone 65% faster with more than 40% less cost. It accomplished this while also providing more constructability information and cost certainty, building trust in the delivery model with stakeholders.

Learn more about this project in Stok’s webinar, Decarbonize Now with Collaborative Project Delivery. Watch the recording.

Photo Credit: AltaPro

Project Leadership

Stephani Carter
Integrated Project Delivery | High-Performing Teams | ESG | Carbon
Elise Vajsabel
Integrated Project Delivery | LEED | Project Management