The design called for construction to take place largely over open water in the harbor. Indeed, two-thirds of the structure extends over ocean and required 900 piles to anchor it. PCL’s construction teams had to deal with tides that varied up and down by 15 feet, forcing workers to work at different times throughout the day and night to catch the water at a low enough elevation to facilitate tasks.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) was an important tool on this project. With more than 19,000 unique steel pieces fabricated for the structure, some of an enormous size, it was imperative that the owners, engineers, and fabricators could see what was being built and where conflicts might occur. In the end, communication lines were open and BIM was instrumental in understanding the geometry, minimizing the amount of steel required, and solving problems before they happened.