Excavation Underway at Festival Condominiums in Vaughan

Urbantoronto.ca
Nov. 16, 2021

Menkes Developments and QuadReal Property Group's Festival Condominiums, the largest new mixed-use development at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC), has begun its excavation. Designed by IBI Group, the project is comprised of four towers connected by a podium, and will boast the tallest building in Vaughan's city centre, at 59 storeys.

Our update last month shared that the project had just broken ground. Now, a vast hole has started to form at the site, a boulder-lined ramp leading down into it.

Piercing the horizon in the image above, we can see a blue shoring rig on the north edge of the pit. It is being used to dig holes for the piles of pile and lagging shoring that is going in. The piles are steel I-beams, while lagging are wooden slats that are held horizontally between the piles; you can see a completed portion of a pile and lagging shoring wall by the left edge of the photo just below the horizon. The lagging efficiently resists the load of the retained soil behind it and transfers it to the deeply anchored piles. In the image below, another section of shoring wall can been seen at the back of the pit.

Located in South VMC, Festival is part of the Assembly Park community, set between Highways 7 and 407 and running west to east from Highway 400 to Jane Street. Festival is being developed in phases, and when completed will be home to more than 4,500 residents in the 2,470 residential suites of its four towers. A central plaza is part of the 5.5-acre plan, to be encompassed by 85,000ft of commercial space featuring dining, shopping, and lifestyle services.