Objectives:
Design and construction of a 50 MW hyperscale colocation data centre in a brownfield retrofit of an existing warehouse. Rapid deployment of 15 MW of the total capacity required in 9 months. Client would supply all major equipment (generator, UPS and HVAC). Scope included the 50MW utility upgrade, all exterior civil work, major structural work to facility, all security and building management elements, in addition to the base building office space, lobby, meeting rooms and support areas.

The anchor tenant driving the 9 month capacity requirement also required 30,000 sq ft of data center white space fully fit out with all electrical distribution, hot aisle containment, security and structured cabling completed.

Challenges:

• Extremely tight timelines under normal circumstances
• During project tender process, COVID pandemic struck, crippling equipment/material supply chain and access to labour pool due to Canadian and global shutdowns
• Constant re-planning due to ever changing equipment and material due dates
• Significant demolition work was required

Solutions:

• Tight coordination with owner and tenant to extend delivery date
• Working very closely with municipal and electrical utility partners to maintain schedule even though most everything was shutdown for many months due to COVID
• Working with various levels of government on safely re-opening jobsites
• Executed an aggressive plan to run 24×7 shift work with a max of 500 individuals working daily for 3 months to pull in the schedule after losing over 100 days to COVID shutdowns
• Parallel work streams and multiple building permits to allow for demolition fast tracking while final building design was being completed
• Leveraging CRSC’s “STAR” application program membership with the City of Toronto allowed for schedule compression

Outcomes:
Even though the overall schedule was delayed over 100 days due to the provincial COVID shutdown from March to July 2020, CRSC managed to compress the schedule and delivered the final solution, allowing the tenant to move into the facility, in a delay of less than 100 days. Meticulous attention to detail and an enhanced COVID health and safety protocol prevented any jobsite shutdowns from occurring due to outbreaks.

Additional resources were deployed by CRSC to augment project management, health and safety, scheduling and supply chain management. We also collaborated with our trade partners to ensure a strong supervisory presence during the 24×7 shift work.

Strong partnerships with utility and municipal contacts facilitated many of the required quick turn around requests from inspections to temporary power.