INTERNATIONAL: Hines Taps Aconex for Construction Management Services at Bayside Waterfront in Toronto

By Balazs Szekely, Associate Editor

Hines, Waterfront Toronto’s development partner on Bayside Waterfront, has tapped Aconex to provide construction management services for the first phase of public infrastructure work at the project.

The Bayside development is Waterfront Toronto’s largest private sector development project to date. It will transform an underutilized industrial area into an active mixed-use community and waterfront destination. Plans call for 1,800 residences as part of more than two million square feet of residential, office, retail, and cultural space. The 13-acre site is located less than a mile from downtown Toronto, south of Queens Quay between Sherbourne Common and the Parliament Slip. The $910 million development is expected to create around $1.6 billion in economic output and create approximately 1,400 jobs.

The current phase of public infrastructure construction, funded by three levels of government, is valued at approximately $28 million, with completion scheduled for March 2015. This public infrastructure phase includes dock wall stabilization, a public promenade along the water’s edge, and Merchant’s Wharf, a new municipal street running to and along the water’s edge.

According to Mark Potter, construction manager at Hines, the master developer acts both as private developer and a public agency project manager and has many individuals and organizations that need to share project information and status. He said that Hines chose the Aconex platform for the Bayside Waterfront project in order to drive down tendering costs and to reduce risk.

Aconex provides a popular cloud solution for managing information and processes for the world’s largest construction and engineering projects. Founded in 2000, the company has 40 offices throughout the world, including headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco, Calif. With more than 500,000 users and over US$1 trillion of project value delivered in 70 countries, the company’s global customer base includes nine of the top ten engineering, procurement and construction firms, 23 of the 25 largest global design firms, and nearly all Fortune 500 construction and engineering companies.