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Photo courtesy of the Daily Commercial News
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Oakville, ON (PRWeb) September 01, 2010 – Cooper Construction has completed structural concrete for the 90,000 s.f. Balsillie Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo.
The Centre is the brainchild of Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry® wireless solution brand.
CIGI’s principal purpose is to address international governance challenges through world-class research. The CIGI campus will make Kitchener-Waterloo the destination for generations of students and innovators from around the world.
This project received federal and provincial funding totaling $50 million through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and Ontario’s 2009 Budget. The project also received funding of $50-million donation from CIGI founder and chair, Jim Balsillie. The City of Waterloo donated the land next to CIGI for the building of the new campus, valued at $5 million.
Following a competitive bid process, Cooper Construction was named as construction managers for the project – the company’s fourth educational building project in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
Bill Cooper Sr, President of Cooper Construction, stated: ”We’re very proud to have been selected to manage construction of a facility that will have a strong global presence and will have international influence on the future. We’re also delighted to have the opportunity to pioneer the use of innovative construction techniques, such as bubble deck, in Ontario.”
The prefabricated bubble deck structure is a flat hollow slab that spans in two directions. A rebar cage placed on the slab contains hollow reground plastic balls – replacing the concrete that normally forms the centre layer of a concrete slab but contributes nothing to the structural performance.
Bill Cooper stated “I have no doubt that this is the way of the future for a great many projects, and I’m personally thrilled that some of the world’s best young minds will be coming to learn at a truly outstanding facility built by our company.”
For more information on The Balsillie Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), please contact Don Gordon, at 905.829-0444 ext. 231.