April 09 www. bus- ex. com 57 Windmill West use and avoiding a situation in which the thrifty subsidize the wasteful. Consequently, residents at Dockside Green are protected from the vagaries of outside utility suppliers. It isn't necessary to be green to want to live at Dockside; you just need to recognize that it makes commercial sense. In fact, the project is proving beneficial for the whole of British Columbia. Wherever possible, local technology and products are being used to control the highly sophisticated systems found at Dockside Green. As international interest in Dockside Green translates into similar projects elsewhere, the components that have already proved themselves could find themselves at the top of the shopping list. For Van Belleghem, Dockside Green is a labor of love, and realistically it will be some time before the concepts he is promoting become run- of- the- mill. Nevertheless, a combination of aggressive climate-change taxes in British Columbia that are being used to reduce corporate and personal income taxes and a growing pool of skill and knowledge from environmentally minded businesses should see many more such projects in the future. " Breaking new ground is onerous, and it's tempting to stick to the old ways," he says. " But Dockside Green is the tip of the iceberg. Today there are many more theories and strategies being aired. The encouragement for me is seeing a different value system taking shape. When people understand, they want to take ownership. As such, there is such goodwill associated with this development that everyone is committed to its success." – Editorial research by Michael Fretwell

Field construction manager Phil Gardner tells Gary Toushek some of the challenges Ledcor Construction faced in building Vancouver's tallest tower, with its five- star luxury hotel and high- priced condos, during a major construction boom 58 www. bus- ex. com April 09 P hil Gardner is Ledcor Construction's field construction manager for the Living Shangri- La project, a 62- story tower with a five- star hotel up to 15 stories and 47 floors of the most expensive condos in the city ( the penthouses are each in the $ 10– 15 million range) during one of the most explosive construction booms Vancouver has ever experienced. As he coordinated with consultants and the various trades to get it built, he now candidly admits it tested his wits as well as his skills. " Building the tallest tower in Vancouver certainly presented some unique challenges we've never experienced before. Once we hit the higher elevations, we were subjected to a number of windstorms," Gardner recalls. " If it got too windy at times, we had to tie down anything that was loose and move our people down to a lower floor until the conditions improved and we could get back to work." But going back to the beginning, in March 2005, Gardner says, " The timeline we were working under was tight. We began excavating even though the design drawings weren't complete. The final hotel design wasn't completed until late 2007, so the design was running parallel to the budget, which required us to be very budget- conscious when it came to buying materials. The design process was ongoing while we were constructing. This meant that if we found a discrepancy in the drawings, we Living large