WRITER - Vancouver Lifestyles -
Building Vancouver in Style (Continued)
FRANCO CARONA, Newway Concrete Forming Ltd.
Ecuador is leading Germany 1-0.
Turn the sound down fine, but the picture stays on. FIFA rules!
Franco Carona, the Director of Operations for Newway Concrete, is sitting behind his gigantic desk piled high with schematics, spreadsheets, scribblings and toys.
“We just got immigration approval for 200 carpenters. From Mexico, Germany, the Philippines. We’ll put them up for the first two months, then they’re on their own. Maybe four of them will buy a house together. They’ll rent apartments, whatever. I’ve never seen so much work as right now here in Vancouver. People are offering carpenters a $3,000 signing bonus! In 40 years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Franco arrived in Toronto from the town of Sora, 80 miles south east of Rome, in 1967.
“I loved the big Italian community in Toronto, but I remember I was so annoyed to see a sign that said, “WE SPEAK ENGLISH TOO.” I came here to Vancouver for a few days in 1981 with my new bride; again in 1994 to work on the Annacis Island Treatment Plant. In 2004, we moved here. I had been working on the casino in Niagara Falls and there was a $1Million a day penalty on that project, so there was enough stress and I thought I might retire.”
Can you say, “Shangri-La?”
The Living Shangri-La rising from way below the ground at Georgia and Thurlow is one cute, little project for a guy who was considering putting his feet up.
110 feet and seven and a half stories below ground. 62 stories up. The tallest residential building in Canada. The Shangri-La Hotel for the first 15 stories and the rest residences, ranging in price from a bazillion dollars a square foot to if-you-have-to-ask-try-down-the-street-please.
“There were only two people in town who could do a project like this. The other guys were already swamped with work. It didn’t even go out to tender. They called us in. Four of us sat down and decided the price on so much a poured meter and that was it.”
But 62 stories? All that weight! Don’t you need structural scientists just to determine the mix?
“Exactly. The engineers have to change things almost on a daily basis, the weather, the moisture in the air. See all these pipes and conduits? We had to add another six inches of concrete just to cover all that stuff. Fortunately, that’s six stories underground, most of it parking, so we can adjust. On the higher floors, we have to add an accelerant so that the concrete forms much faster. Look, it’s 62 stories, but it’s only one floor on top of another.”
In San Diego, Newway set some sort of world record pouring 11,000 yards of concrete in 16 hours on the Electra condo site. The builder? Nat Bosa.
As for the Shangri-La, “We’re all immigrants and to put your name on such a project! RAI (one of Burlusconi’s several Italian TV channels) came here and filmed.”
There is great pride here. And over the years, Newway has quietly given more than half a million dollars to two dozen charities.
Ezio Bortolussi, the President of Newway, comes into the room. Large, garrulous, he apologizes for the interruption, introduces himself. After only a few minutes of conversation, he asks me to wait. Franco explains their relationship.
“Ezio asked me to stay and be his Director of Operations. He handed me a card and said, “Write down a number that I should pay you.” I wrote a number. He looked at it and said, “It’s not a big enough number. Write again please.”
Ezio returns and hands the visitor a bottle of Pinot Griglio from a private estate in Friuli.
Molto gentile. So kind.
Grace, passion. Building Vancouver the Italian way.
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