Announcement from the Vancouver Sun:


Burnaby steel fabricators capture oval contract

George Third and Sons will supply and install
structural steel for $178-million project

Bruce Constantineau, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, October 05, 2006


A team of Burnaby steel fabricators will spend the next six months marrying steel with wood to create 100-metre arched trusses for Richmond's Olympic speed skating oval.

George Third & Son Ltd. has won an $8.9-million contract to supply and install structural steel for the $178-million project along the middle arm of the Fraser River.

"This is a big contract for us -- it's like a year's worth of work that we have to jam into six months," company vice-president Rob Third said in an interview Wednesday.

The unique design calls for 16 arched trusses to support the structure and Third said his company has performed similar work before with wood-and-steel beams at the Brentwood and Commercial SkyTrain stations. The company employs about 120 workers and expects to hire another 20 to complete the Olympic contract.

The glued laminated wood beams for the skating oval -- to be supplied by Structurlam Products of Penticton -- will come in 25-metre lengths. Steel will be applied to the tops and bottoms of the beams and they will be assembled to create 100-metre trusses on a site near the oval. "We like building the dreams that architects and engineers come up with and we're really looking forward to being involved with a signature structure for the Olympics," Third said.

George Third & Son, founded by Third's grandfather in Vancouver in 1910, has extensive experience with sports structures, having supplied steel for projects such as GM Place stadium in Vancouver and Safeco Field in Seattle. Third said a Chinese customer liked the Brentwood SkyTrain station so much that he hired the company to build a similar structure at a tourist pavilion near a lake in China.

Third said his company is also bidding on another multi-million-dollar Olympic contract to build a ski jump in Whistler.

City of Richmond representative Ted Townsend said just over half of the tenders for the skating oval project have been awarded so far and expects most of the major tenders will be completed by the end of the year. Pile-driving work on the site is nearing completion and workers expect to begin pouring concrete by late October or early November.

The skating oval is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2008.

bconstantineau@png.canwest.com

GOING FOR STEEL

George Third & Son Ltd. in Burnaby is one of the benefactors of the 2010 Games, with a contract to build the structural steel for the speed skating oval for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

$8.9 million: Value of contract.

16: Number of 100-metre composite steel/wood arched trusses to be built.
55,000: Man hours of work the contract will generate.
20: Number of new workers company will hire to do the job.
Source: George Third & Son Ltd.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Click here for more News »»


    ¤ Email us here or phone: 604.526.2333