NEWS RELEASE
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Cambridge, Ontario - October 8th, 2024 - A consortium of Canadian investors has launched an ambitious project which could help usher in a new era of industrial construction.
The Eagle Street Industrial Park in Cambridge, Ontario is expected to have the first industrial building in Ontario and one of only eight in all of Canada to be certified by the Canadian Green Building Council as ‘Zero Carbon Building Design v3’.
The ‘v3’ certification demands carbon reduction be 30% below the Ontario average for embedded carbon in building materials. Further it requires full electrification of all heating and cooling systems down to -10 celsius. The group, however, has gone well beyond the minimums.
“We contacted steel mills that took recycled steel from old projects, melted them down in electric arc furnaces, and repurposed the steel,” says Michael Hilson spokesman for the group. “So not only are they using electric arc furnaces - so there is less carbon emitted during the manufacturing of the steel - but they are using recycled steel as well.”
Hilson reports that the concrete foundations at the 158,000 square foot building, which have been poured, came from recycled concrete taken from demolished projects and then mixed with new concrete.
The building insulation is also unique. While the roof and walls will be ‘v3’ compliant, with R30 in the walls and R40 in the roof, after consultation with Toronto based company ‘Ecovert’, every connecting point in the building will also be fully insulated with engineered thermal breaks.
“We even put R20 insulation in the foundation to make sure nothing leaks out the bottom,” Hilson continues. “We want to ensure the energy that we put in the building stays in the building.”
Ecovert, a major player in green building engineering, provided thermal imaging to demonstrate what happens when these measures are not taken. Hilson says they also provided extensive input on all critical aspects of the building design.
The use of revolutionary air source heat pumps is another planned innovation. Together with Ecovert the investors discovered these units were widely used in Sweden, Norway and Finland. All three countries have comparable seasonal temperatures to southern Ontario. Using the Ontario electrical grid, reputed to be one of the cleanest in the world, the building will use the most advanced version of these pumps (manufactured by Daikin) and will be the first building in North America to deploy them.
“We are utilizing 27% less electricity - in terms of Kilowatt hours per year - of a traditional industrial building and we have reduced greenhouse gas intensity by 82% compared to a traditional industrial building,” Hilson adds.
The investors speak highly of David Anderson of Cushman Wakefield who brokered the deal which saw them originally purchasing the 30 acre property in 2018. At present two buildings occupy the site which is 1.7km from the highway 401 access ramp. The Zero Carbon v3 building will see tenant occupancy by June 2025.
“There is an economic benefit for doing it for both the landlord and the tenant,” says Anderson. “And the third aspect is future proofing the facility not so much as where the building is today but where is the market is expected to be in 10, 15, 20 years down the road, so this building doesn’t become functionally obsolete.”
To that end the roof will be pre-engineered for future use of solar array which would cover the entire electrical needs of the building and be able to supply clean energy back into the grid.
Hilson admits they could have reduced building costs by as much as 20% had they not embarked on the Zero Carbon Building Design v3.
“A lot of people are buying and building to flip,” he declares. “Builders are looking at ‘how can we do this as cheaply as possible and tick these boxes’ then pass it off to either an end consumer or real estate investor. They are not interested in the long game.
“We have no interest in selling the building or the property. Our intention is to own it as long as possible and ideally pass it on to the next generation."
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