Kitchener City Hall Open Spaces Renewal
Services
Project Value
$10,000,000
Key Personnel
Project Overview
Located in the heart of downtown Kitchener, City Hall is fortunate to be surrounded by two public squares. The Duke Street Square entrance offers a quiet space to sit and enjoy an elevated garden and public artwork away from the noise of the downtown. Carl Zehr Square, located on the King Street side, offers a large event space and boasts a large water feature which converts to a skating rink in the winter.
The space is in the heart of the City and is used to host festivals and markets throughout the year. Both spaces are located over City Hall’s parking garage. After 27 years of use, these areas and structures beneath them are in need of restoration and new protection systems. The City used this as an opportunity to improve accessibility, provide new low-maintenance hardscapes, and make the spaces more functional and inviting.
MTE’s Involvement
Our team is proud to be helping the City of Kitchener with their the open spaces renewal project.
Our Civil Engineering team was retained by the project’s Prime Consultant to complete a site assessment. Our investigation identified the grading and servicing opportunities and constraints as part of the Master Planning process. This assessment included a site visit, discussion with City staff, review of as recorded grading and servicing drawings, and a topographical survey. We went on to complete the final engineering design of the plaza, including the detailed site grading and servicing design.
Our Building Restoration team was engaged to address wear and tear in heavily used areas, as well as to assess the structural and protection systems of the podium deck supporting the spaces and the granite and terra cotta cladding systems.
The goal was to restore the structure and provide a new waterproofing system that will last the life of the new concrete surfaces being placed above it, while using low-odour products to minimize disruption to City Hall.
Throughout construction our team provided full-time construction review and project management. The second phase of the project which includes restoration of the Duke Street Square, is currently underway, while the first phase has wrapped up and Carl Zehr Square has reopened to the public just in time for the summer.
