Pan Am building gets finishing touches in Markham

YorkRegion.com
July 24, 2014
Amanda Persico

Aside from the army of construction crews working fervently to put the finishing touches on Markham’s Pan Am Centre, the first thing you notice is the amount of natural light beaming through the five-storey facility.

The sheer amount of glass – etched with bird-friendly dots to prevent birds dying from flying into the windows – allows the light to illuminate the maple floors found in the triple gymnasium and the beams of British Columbia fir that stretch across the pool deck.

“This is fantastic,” said Toronto 2015 Pan Am CEO Saad Rafi while touring Markham’s facility. “Look at how the light travels through. This is top notch. Markham should be congratulated.”

He was also impressed with the approachability of the building, which features coloured glass fins and an outdoor piazza. The building is at the heart of the new downtown centre.

“Enterprise Boulevard will be the spine of Markham,” Rafi said. “And this building will be a key vertebrae. This is a jewel.”

This week, the Economist & Sun was invited to a special sneak peek inside the centre, which is still a construction zone.

“Every time we see the building there is progress,” the city’s new sport development manager and former Pan Am gold medalist, Janis Cookson, said.

Being part of Markham’s Pan Am project is extra special for Cookson, who took home a gold medal during the 1983 Pan Am Games in Venezuela for women’s softball.

Once the building is complete, in the coming months, her Pan Am gold medal, softball jersey and team picture will be on display.

But there is still work to be done, such as sealing the wood floors in the gym and laying tiles around the massive pool deck.

The moveable pool floor and the retractable bleacher seats in the gym still have to be tested.

In this building made of wood and glass, Markham will host water polo, table tennis, badminton and parapan table tennis.

Along with the gym and pool, the facility also features a warm-up gym adjacent to the triple gym and a two-level fitness centre.

The Olympic-size pool features a moveable floor to accommodate different group needs as well as two moveable walls to divide the pool into smaller spaces.

Since international sport requirements were introduced into the design stage early on, spanning across the pool are 10 large wooden support beams, which eliminate the need for support columns that block sightlines during competition.

The city hosted its one-year countdown celebration recently and will host a one-year Parapan countdown celebration in early August.

The city is also hosting about a dozen test events prior to the start of the official Games next summer, including an international badminton competition in October and the international water polo World Cup qualifier tournament in January.

While there have been several news reports about Pan Am facilities behind construction schedule, overall the facilities are coming in on time and on budget, Rafi said.

“I don’t know how to say ‘yes’ differently,” he said. “The Games are next year, not next month.”

Earlier this year, council was presented with a staff report saying Markham’s centre was about eight weeks behind schedule due to the amount of snow this past winter.

It is an Olympic standard to have facilities open a year in advance.

That is still a target many jurisdictions cannot meet, Rafi said.

Construction crews could be seen scrambling to fix buildings, walkways and roads mere days before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

That’s the difference with the Toronto 2015 approach, Rafi said. 

“We are building community facilities that will host sports events,” he said. “Not merely sports facilities.”

The goal for Markham’s Pan Am Centre is to become a high performance sport development centre post-Pan Am, Cookson said.

The city is in the process of developing a sport development program and is looking at other high performance facilities in Mississauga and British Columbia.

“We are looking at sport tourism,” Cookson said. “We want Markham to become a sport destination.”

SIDEBAR

BY THE NUMBERS

• $78.5 million – cost to build the Markham Pan Am Centre, of which the federal government is pitching in $29 million. So far, Markham’s project is about $7 million under budget;

• 147,000 square feet – is the size of Markham’s new facility, which will be home to waterpolo, badminton, table tennis and parapan table tennis during the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.  Markham’s centre features a 34,000 square foot triple gymnasium with maple floors, 10-lane, 50-metre Olympic size pool with a movable floor and two bulk heads to divide the pool into smaller swim areas, 2-level fitness centre and six multi-use rooms;

• 3.6 million – litres of water are needed to fill the 50 metre, Olympic-sized pool. That’s equivalent to more than 18,000 bathtubs;

• 87 tonnes – the weight of each support beam that stretches 170 feet across the pool deck. That is equivalent to the weight of two fire trucks. Each of the 10 support beams is made from British Columbia fir.

• 12.5 metre – high ceiling in the triple gymnasium, which meets international volleyball and badminton standards;

• 34,000 square foot – gym can accommodate 12 badminton courts or three NBA-sized basketball courts. The gym can be laid out for half a dozen different court sports including volleyball, badminton, basketball and table tennis;

• 2,000 – seating capacity in the gym, of which 1,000 are from permanent retractable bleachers;

• 750 – Canadian athletes will participate in the Toronto 2015 Games, which is one of the largest Canadian teams. More than 200 Canadian athletes participated in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, more than 110 participated in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary and more than 380 participated in 1976 Montreal Olympic Games;

• 10,000 – athletes from 41 countries will participate in 51 sports in 32 venues across Ontario;

• 18 – sports during the 2015 Pan Am games will act as Olympic qualifiers for the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.