The company recently completed the MaRS Discovery District, an R&D facility for the University of Toronto and its nine affiliated hospitals.

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Anchor Shoring & Caissons Ltd. makes building foundations strong, but the company’s engineering expertise and ability to work cooperatively with customers to save time and money have set it apart from the competition. The Toronto-based firm designs and installs soil retention systems, caissons and driven pile foundations for customers primarily throughout Ontario. Part of Toronto’s The Anchor Group, Anchor Shoring has completed more than 4,000 projects in its more than 40 years of experience. The company boasts an extensive fleet of equipment and material inventory. The company is owned and operated by the team of Dawn Tattle, Tom Stack, Derrick Speakman and Paul Kreycir.

The company strives to help customers optimize their designs whenever possible, Dawn Tattle says. “We really like to look at the design side and see if there are changes we can make to create a better product for our client,” she says. “We try to work with clients from the design phase through construction and come up with ideas to do the work more efficiently and safely.”

When Anchor worked on a project at York University in Toronto for PCL Constructors Inc., it suggested a redesign of the caissons to solve problems created by changed soil conditions, Tattle says. “We increased the diameter of the caissons and raised the bottom elevations to eliminate problems with unsafe levels of gas in the holes,” she notes. “The design change also eliminated the need to drill through wet, caving soil layers.”  

The project had also suffered two labor strikes, which caused it to fall 33 days behind. By adding additional equipment and redesigning the caissons, Anchor was able to make up one month of the lost time.     

Anchor Shoring also saved the owner time and more than $250,000 on the Casino Windsor project in Windsor, Ontario, with construction manager Eastern Construction, she says. “We completed a tieback testing program in advance of the work to develop tieback alternatives and also changed the caissons to driven piles.”  

Under contract with Soncin Construction Corp. on the Simcoe Street Tunnel expansion project in Toronto, Anchor redesigned the shoring to require fewer piles and reduce the impact on train service. “That saved the owner over $400,000, plus a lot of time on the schedule,” she says.

Project Strength
Anchor Shoring is working on the NXT Windermere by the Lake condominium project in Toronto. The company began drilling in January and completed the vertical drilling for structural caissons and the caisson wall in June, ahead of schedule, Tattle says. It is currently installing tiebacks to brace the caisson wall. In all, Anchor Shoring will incorporate 500 tons of steel and 10,000 cubic meters of concrete. Anchor Shoring was awarded the contract by Cresford Developments and construction manager TMG Builders Inc.  

Anchor Shoring has just completed the MaRS Discovery District, an R&D facility for the University of Toronto and its nine affiliated hospitals. The company's contract includes 6,500 cubic meters of concrete mixes, 200 tons of steel beams and 100 tons of rebar. Shoring was required to protect adjacent streets, subway structures and a multistory Heritage building during excavation. The MaRS structure will be supported on 140 caissons up to 84 inches in diameter founded on the shale bedrock. The company drilled these from the base of the excavation at a depth of 55 feet, Tattle notes.

Anchor Shoring worked for construction manager PCL Constructors on the project. Overall, the MaRS project is expected to cost $300 million to complete, Tattle says. Anchor Shoring's portion of the project was completed in June, ahead of schedule.

Full Speed Ahead
Tattle says Anchor Shoring has developed a strong family culture, with a large number long-term employees, many of whom have family members among the staff. The company was founded in 1968 by the partnership team of Gord Demetrick and Gord Stack. It is now in its second generation with Tattle, Demetrick’s daughter, and Stack’s son Tom. “It’s unique, especially for this sort of cyclical business,” she says. “We try to keep our key people, even during the slow times. Our biggest asset is our people – a big part of our business is investment in technology, and in order to be able to run that, we need good people.”

The company has established training programs and standardization systems to keep employees informed of procedures and expectations. “We provide safety orientation for every new worker and ongoing training for all employees,” she says. “The health and safety of our workers is a top priority at Anchor.”

She says the company expects to see more growth and will continue to take on challenging projects. “We’re focusing on being more active in the design and early stages of the project to optimize design and ensure that equipment and material is available to meet the clients schedule,” she says.   

Tattle emphasizes the company’s long-term business relationships, which help it generate repeat business. Those relationships, combined with a commitment to delivering quality work, are the key to Anchor Shoring’s success, she says.