A new dimension
A high-powered duo has high hopes of streamlining complex construction projects.
Javier Glatt, a former linebacker who helped the BC Lions win the 2006 Grey Cup, and Nick Cantin, who has worked at Bombardier and in the office of starchitect Frank Gehry, launched Vancouver-based CadMakers Inc. in spring 2014 to provide third-party review services to builders.
CadMakers applies CATIA (Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application) software to vet the execution of complex designs – a common practice in the automotive and aerospace sectors. Cantin encountered the software at Bombardier and felt it could assist builders.
“We just take the plan and try to build it,” Glatt explained. “If we can’t build it, fully integrated on the computer screen, they can’t build it live. We’re flagging it, without a design bias.”
UBC Properties Trust, Bosa Properties Inc. and Beedie Group are interested in the tool to reduce the incidence of change orders and other sources of construction delays.
“Co-ordination issues that are uncovered on site can potentially be very problematic and very expensive to fix,” said Dave Poettcker, a development manager with UBC Properties Trust, who is overseeing construction of the University of British Columbia’s new aquatic centre.
CadMakers identified several issues prior to the start of construction, including a miscalculation of the depth required for the room housing the centre’s filtration system.
Glatt said CadMakers’ system lays a foundation for further time-saving initiatives, such as just-in-time delivery of building materials.
“We’re not there yet … [but] we have exact counts of every hanger, every flange, every valve,” he said.
Northward lure
While many people wonder if the latest 25-basis-point cut to the Bank of Canada’s overnight target rate will make it easier to carry a mortgage (or simply boost house prices even further), the dollar plumbed depths unknown since 2004.
A low loonie may have the bigger effect on the market, according to Brendon Ogmundson, economist with the BC Real Estate Association, because Canadian properties will appear more affordable than U.S. assets.
“It’s obviously a little cheaper now for U.S. buyers looking in Whistler,” he said. “Arizona and California [are] now a lot more expensive for B.C. retirees, so that may turn their view inward as well … [giving] a boost to the Island or the Okanagan.”
Borrowing costs won’t change much, however, though it may stimulate a market that Chris Simmons, managing director of Royal LePage City Centre in Vancouver, said is already “overstimulated.”
“It’s as busy as it was back in ’07 before the economic flu hit,” he said.
Three years, he’s out
Brian Jackson beat 106 other applicants for the post of general manager, planning and development, in Vancouver in 2012, when he succeeded Brent Toderian, who left the city after a term of six years. Now, in what he calls “a selfish decision,” the 60-year-old Jackson plans to retire at the end of this year.
“Our public servants are always run through the mill, and many of them don’t last very long,” said Anne McMullin, president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute in Vancouver. “It’s disappointing; he’s only been in the job for three years.”
Toronto’s former chief planner Paul Bedford called Jackson “an ambitious and dedicated planner” who cultivates “a good working relationship with the development industry and politicians,” but engaging Vancouver residents to accept change in their neighbourhoods was often challenging, he said.
