How Halifax's Dexel Developments Builds Landmark Apartments: Vertical Integration, BIM, and 25-Year CapEx Thinking

0:04Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Very happy to have with us today our guest as a developer — Kris Skiba with Dexel Developments. Kris, thanks so much for being here, man. Thank you, appreciate it. Thanks for having me, I'm really excited to be here. Yeah. Kris is the Vice President of Design and Construction for Dexel, and I think you've been with them for — listen, I've been with them pretty much my whole career. So I started right after university — that was Dalhousie

0:34engineering, and an MBA at SMU. Yes, yeah. I did — as soon as I finished engineering at Dal, I started with Louie Lawen, who's the owner of Dexel, and kind of the rest is history. That was in 2006. Yeah. He survived — he's still there. That's a long time. That's what, 15 years? Yeah. And so you started as a site super and kind of worked your way up, and a lot of different roles — all kinds of different roles. I mean, day one starting there I was shoveling gravel, so

1:07I've done everything. Yeah, well — so maybe we just talk a little bit about Dexel. Everybody in the industry knows Dexel — I mean, you guys have been putting up so many landmark projects and great architectural statements in the city for so many years and just really making Halifax look better, right? And that's — so it's great to have you guys on as a developer. But maybe just a little bit about Dexel Architecture and kind of how things work in the company and how

1:40it's set up — just a little background. Sure. Yeah, well, I mean, first off, thank you for the kind words. It's — you know, we have our noses to the grindstone most of the time and you're kind of looking down at what you're doing every day, and every once in a while you pop your head up and you kind of recognize what you're doing and recognize that other people around you are recognizing it. So it's a good reminder to say, yeah, you

2:05know, we are doing some cool projects. Structure of the company is — we have Dexel Architecture, which is our kind of little in-house design firm. There's a team of five. We focus primarily on the construction drawings — really the nuts and bolts of putting the building together. A lot of the initial concepts, we work with different architectural firms to come up with the concepts and then we really hone and refine them in-house. And that's kind of one big arm of the company.

2:38And the other side is the construction management end. So we do all our own construction management — you see the Dexel signs on the site. Those are our own guys — guys and girls who are managing the site. So we get this whole full-circle, and then on the back end we have Paramount Management that manages the property. So we build exclusively apartment buildings with some mixed use in them, and we're owning them, we're developing them, we're designing

3:06them, we're building them, and then we're managing them afterwards. So we get this cool full life-cycle look at the building world, which is really — I'm really fortunate to be part of, because it's a very unique way to look at construction. You get to see that whole piece, you know. You're not just looking at a little wedge of a life cycle of a building — you see the whole thing. Yeah. There's not many to compare it to

3:30as integrated as Dexel is, with the in-house architecture. There are, you know, there's a few other developers that kind of function in a similar way to us, but yeah, on the whole I think it's a relatively unique model. And you know, like I said, there's a few developers here locally in Halifax, but it's somewhat unique to Halifax too, the way that we work. Yeah. But it's — you get to see, like I said, a different perspective and you get to learn so much

4:00and I think that's really what has helped us develop as a company and develop the quality product that we're able to, because we have to live with every one of our mistakes. Yeah, you know, you're — fortunately or unfortunately, when you're finished, you're not selling the project and walking away from it. It's yours. And every error, every mistake, you're aware of and you kind of have to deal with it, which gives you this really great building

4:32block every time you go to the next project. Okay, what went right on the last one? What didn't? What went right 10 years ago? Oh my goodness, we have an entire system design in a building that 10 years later is not doing what it's supposed to, and we can learn from that. And so what's it look like in-house for your construction division and your architecture division — is that open communication all the time? Or is architecture dominantly preliminary stuff? Are they in contact with

4:59while the site's being built, with the site super in-house? Yeah, it's very integrated. So, as the architectural team works through their construction drawings, we're often already building. Yeah, you know, there's shovels in the ground and we're still hammering through mechanical and electrical system designs and suite layouts. And as we go through construction there's questions, there's detailed clarifications, and that's one of the strengths we have — it's a direct line. They're picking up the phone or the email right to the decision

5:37makers. So the RFI process or change order internally — it's so easy compared to what it would be if you have a general contractor. That sounds amazing, because you just ask the question and here's the answer. And we try to get back within the same day with the response, and it definitely makes things very smooth. And we get spoiled that way. Extremely efficient. Yeah, we try to be. Yeah. Every one of Dexel's — is the Dexel Architecture involved? I know

6:09you said you do outsource some parts of the architecture, which is normal. Yeah, but they're always involved. We're always involved. And really that stemmed from early days working with architectural firms, wanting a higher level of detail than traditionally is produced from an architectural firm. And one of Louie's first buildings before I started with them was the Waterford, which is on Hollis Street. And you always — any person or company cuts their teeth on their first building and you learn a lot. And I think

6:50through that process — and this is the message he's passed on to us as a team — is, you know, really to make sure your envelope's tight. So make sure you have an efficient building, that the detailing is correct. I mean, there's a couple of ways to do this. You can rely on craftsmen who really understand how to take a schematic-type detail and create it into something that's going to work. And that's a method that works. The craftsmen are fewer and further between as the industry grows here. You

7:19know, there's so many young people in it, so much construction going on. It's forcing a higher level of detail, a higher level of instruction to the site, so that — not only that, but the buildings themselves are more complicated. Envelope design is more complicated. Materials in the building are more complicated. Heating systems are more complicated. So providing really quality information to the site was the catalyst of bringing that design in-house. And it started with just having one design person who's going to take an

7:56architectural drawing and maybe augment and detail a few things and respond quickly with some sketches to support the site. And it's grown from that to a full team of five. Yeah. So it was really a kind of organic growth. When I started with Dexel it was three of us — Louie being the site super, the project manager, the owner, a CAD person, and kind of me just going where I was told to go and learning that way. And it's just been one

8:27step at a time, just this organic evolution to where we are now. That was great timing for you to come out of your university time into the workforce with someone like Louie, and then just be with him the whole journey. It definitely was. It was — I think it was a lot of luck in some ways, for both him and me. I had no idea what I was getting into. I just finished an

8:55engineering degree and it was 2006. There was not much going on here. Louie had the only tower crane up in downtown Halifax — that was at the W Suites, which is on Barrington Street. And most of my friends I graduated with — I think I was in a class of about 45 — 40 of them went out west to Calgary or Edmonton because that's where the work was. And I really wanted to stay here. I love the Maritimes, I love Halifax, I grew up here. I grew up here,

9:29my family's from here, all my extended family's here. I'm very connected in Halifax and in Nova Scotia. So my goal was to stay here. And I was applying with companies that are here, and I was ready to take a job. I love building things, I've always loved building things. So it was — what's a job where I can build things and work in Halifax? And I luckily ended up working with Louie. I remember the interview pretty clearly, and I remember telling him — he said,

9:59"Why do you want to work here?" I'm like a 22-year-old kid, I'm green as anything, I've never done anything like this before, and I just said, "I want to learn the business. I just want to learn. I want to learn how to build buildings." And he gave me a shot at it. Worked my butt off and just slowly, year over year, growing responsibilities and took on more. And yeah. And the MBA came into play a

10:24little later, which was — it was really around the time when I was a site super. I've been a site super on a few projects. You know, there's a transition — at some point you can get really good at being on site and managing the build, but to move to that next level you need to understand the numbers, you need to understand the business side, the people-management side a little better. You need to understand how to make those dollars and cents work and be able to

11:00produce something at the end and make good decisions along the way that's going to keep you on the right side of being profitable. Yeah. And it kind of shows, you know, your proactiveness and initiative. As you were talking about being a site super during that time — and that's kind of the time where you did your MBA at St. Mary's. I've always thought that the best site supers, even foremen for subcontractors, they're very business-minded, because they're rallying troops and yeah, they have to have the

11:26construction knowledge but they also have to be thinking every minute of every day, like, am I making the company money? Because that's really their job — to steward the finances. So — I mean, I come from construction management. I learned the design as I went. So I would say I'm kind of — my mindset is fundamentally rooted around that, with good detailed design supporting quality construction management. But from the construction management end of things, and even the design — what we deal in is

12:02that's all we do all day. We take a piece of information from here and we tell someone else over there, and then we follow up with them and make sure they understand what we're doing and try to motivate them and try to give them a path and a direction and a timeline. That's all — if you boil it down, that's what construction management is. The managers are not out there on the tools. Yeah. Talk more about that communication, because for someone like you in

12:33your position with a company like Dexel, building landmark projects year after year at that level — communication. It's all communication. Just talk about like, what are the skills — when people are striving to get to that level in their careers in construction, obviously communication is important, it's kind of a cliché, but maybe just talk about your experience with that. Well, I think fundamentally the most important thing is to align all the different parties that are

13:07involved. At the end of the day there's a couple hundred people coming physically on the site, and there's hundreds more that are in the manufacturing facilities — project managers with the contractors, or accountants, or others that are kind of supporting that. There's thousands of people that touch these projects, and everyone has their own goals. But there's one common goal that all of those individuals are involved in, and that is to complete the project and to be proud of the work they did and to hopefully put a little bit of money

13:47in their pocket when they're finished. So the trick is to align everyone and have everyone understand the fundamental — that 95, 98 percent of everyone that's working there wants to do the best they can every day and wants to be proud of what they've done. So if you can take that mindset and that attitude and direct it towards a common goal, which is the project — that's really what you're trying to do every day. Understand that point of view, maybe what's specifically important to them, understand how that fits in the bigger

14:29picture, and align everyone's goals towards the same. And you do that through daily huddles — at the site level every day you have a foreman meeting, talking to each other: this is what I'm working on, hey maybe I'm having a problem here, I'm going to be working in this area, can we make sure it's clear and clean. So everyone understands, because everyone wants to come each day and get the most out of the day. You don't want to be butting heads, in each other's way. So you have

14:57that on a daily basis. Then you have a weekly meeting where you're talking about what's going to happen over the next three weeks. So how do we plan — where are we going to stage some vehicles, are we missing drawings or details, are there material problems? You're talking about the bigger picture. And then usually about bi-monthly we have a project-manager-level meeting where we're talking about the goals for the next two or three months that are coming up.

15:24What do we need for resources, what should we be expecting to accomplish — so that companies we're working with can plan ahead. "Hey, you know, maybe I need to budget four or five workers here on this site that's coming up down the road." And that helps you avoid the situation where you're calling somebody saying, "Hey, get down here, we're trying to get this floor finished," and they say, "I don't have the guys, they're busy on another job." Well, if you talk about it in

15:54advance, they can be prepared, and it just makes things go a lot smoother. So I guess that's what I mean by it's communication — understanding what makes everyone tick. And I mean, anyone who's part of these big projects understands how important logistics and planning is. And if you're part of one that doesn't go well and things are getting missed and you're getting calls two days before you need to be on site — that's because those meetings aren't happening as much as they need to

16:21and the communication isn't there. Often times there's always things that are out of your control that you have to deal with. You have to pivot, and it's not always roses. It's a lot of putting out fires. We talk about spinning plates — that's the analogy we use in the office a lot. Yeah, you have a lot of plates, you got them spinning on top of that stick, and you really just try to get them all going. One slows down and you've got

16:48to go over there and take care of that for a bit. And when you're working with such a large team — they're not your employees. Almost none of them are. We don't self-perform — we only self-perform the management and the design. So the people that we're working with, you don't have a whole lot of control over their coming and going and what's happening. More like you're the facilitator. That's how you have to think of yourself —

17:20you're facilitating them to do what they're good at. And for them to showcase their skills, you're just trying to help make that happen. And like you said before, if everybody's part of the project, everybody makes a percentage and turns a margin and does something they're proud of — absolutely, that's the goal. And that's what I mean — that's what we're trying to do with some of our projects. It's an incredibly good feeling when the people around you are proud of what

17:48you're achieving together. You mention a project like The George — it's exciting to see that building coming together and it's exciting to see the energy. Just the project itself brings that everyone involved is excited to be part of a project that other people recognize as kind of changing the landscape. That lot was just a sore point for Halifax for my entire lifetime. I remember going to high school, taking the bus, going by that lot — at first it was just some

18:24rundown Victorians — really run down, with pigeons and stuff all over them. And then one of the previous owners had painted it many different colors, so yeah, I won't get into what happened there. And that was a sore point. And then an empty lot for 10 or 15 years. So to take that and turn it into something that's really adding to the neighborhood, that is changing the landscape of Halifax and kind of changing a little bit of the thought of

18:58what an apartment building can be — it's exciting to be part of it. It's exciting for everybody on the team. So you don't have to motivate anybody. If you had to, they probably shouldn't be there. It's like the simplicity of unity, working together for a common goal, shared vision — there's no better feeling. Absolutely. So the job, like you said, is to facilitate and provide an environment where they can do the best they can.

19:23And we don't get it right all the time — we do the best we can every day and we're learning every day. Yeah. And now you bring up The George — let's kind of talk about that. I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and he was just kind of joking around, saying like, "That lot's been vacant — like you said — for 15 years. How does that happen? Like,

19:47how is it that all of a sudden there's this" — yeah, for people that are outside the industry. We were talking before we came on the air here. Maybe just give a little bit of the timeline of what it's like to take a vacant lot like that and then get to the point where now, maybe five months away from opening, you know, a major, 170-unit — is it yeah, we're actually opening — 17 stories, 14 stories, 15 stories? 15. Yeah. And we opened at

20:17the end of April, actually. So — I'm out of the loop, that's okay. Because we've had a construction hoist on the outside until just a couple of weeks ago. So we're still building, and we always do — we have a phased opening. So at what point, how many years ago, did Dexel management — Louie, yourself — look at that lot and then get approval from the city, have your architecture firm design? Take us through a little bit of it. It's — I will even struggle with the

20:47number of years, because it's been a very long time. That project has been something that's been in our office — I shouldn't say floating, it's been something that's been actively being worked on for 10-plus years. It is a long process to go through things with the city. Things are improving, the city's been doing an excellent job with Centre Plan and streamlining the — I think we still have a long way to go. Is that now a big part of your position, dealing with the city on

21:18approvals and planning? Somewhat. Most of my role is — I'm certainly involved in some of those early discussions, but it will basically take a development agreement, or a DA, or whatever it is specifically on that — there are some different approvals and different language depending on the site. But taking it from that point and then taking it into getting the construction permit and then to full occupancy — that permit comes from the municipality? That comes from HRM, from the city. Yeah.

21:53So those early processes — I do get involved in some of the community and many of those discussions. But fortunately I get to play a supporting role in that area. Louie generally takes that on and, like I said, then passes it over for me to kind of run with it and execute afterwards. But it is — it's sales. It's a lot of selling. Sometimes the bylaws work with what you need to do, and sometimes they don't. And

22:30sometimes you need to figure out a way to marry those two goals. Often bylaws — and again, Centre Plan is helping a lot because it provided a lot of clarity — but we're talking about bylaws and zoning that was developed in the '60s and the '70s, and it's really not relevant for Halifax in the 2000s or 2020s. Like it's — we've come so far as a city. We've developed a lot, our mindset is different, what the city needs is different.

23:06So it is often — and has been — a very long process to take what those guidelines say is suitable for a lot and turn that into something that makes sense for today, makes financial sense to build, and makes sense for the neighborhood as well. I mean, one thing that we really pride ourselves on is we do our very best to take the best from the neighborhood and complement it. St. Joseph Square is a great example of that. That was St. Joseph's Church, and the site was redeveloped. It's on

23:45Gottingen Street — apartment buildings, a 106-unit apartment building. But we worked very hard to try to bring the feel of the Hydrostone, which is right around the corner, and bring that into the building and take elements of that design. One of the features we have, actually, on the corner is a stained-glass piece — it's a big concrete precast panel that's cantilevered out over the sidewalk, and the stained-glass windows in it are the stained-glass windows from the original church. The stone that is on

24:18the townhouse entrances is all the original stone from the church. And the point of doing this is to really try to integrate the building and pay homage to what was there before and hopefully leave the community better than when we were there. And that's always our goal. There's so much that goes into perspective — with your architects and your management team, with the neighboring community, the history. It's not just about the building. No. And I think that's part of

24:52the magic of building and owning and managing the property, because we're not coming in, building for two or three years, and then leaving and going to the next one. We're still there. Those neighbors that got disrupted while we were building are still the neighbors that are living next to the building when it's finished. So the mindset is not that different than if you're building your own house. You're building a community that you're planning on living in, so you kind of want to respect the

25:26community that's there, because you're going to live there when you're done. You want to be able to say hello to that neighbor afterwards and not have bad blood. You want to be proud when you walk through your neighborhood that what you've created fits in seamlessly and makes it better. Is there any bylaw issues you can talk about — if there's one or two main ones for The George building, like the height of the building, obstruction of view, energy, how it's heated? Height of the

25:52building and obstruction of views is always an issue — it's always the biggest one. Height is a challenge. Heritage is a challenge always in Halifax. Different projects have different challenges. The attitude is changing around height in Halifax, but traditionally we've been very opposed to it. And there's very few projects I've been involved in where height wasn't — whether we're talking about a six-story building, a nine-story building, a 15-story building — it's always a hot-button topic. And it's because of the heritage. A lot of developers are wanting Halifax to be

26:37taken seriously as a bigger city, like Toronto or whatever. But building up is the — well, right. Let's face it, Halifax is changing in a very dramatic way in a very short period of time. We see that over the last few years, the last five years. You take a photograph from the harbor looking at the skyline — it's completely different. The feel is completely different. And change is difficult. To be personal with you, my mother and I have this — my

27:10mother grew up in Halifax, and it's a very different city than it was then. How does she feel about it? She supports me and what I do. But of course, for her, it's — this is a different place. You fall in love with the place, and the community is — that's a challenge. I think it's always been a challenge for Halifax. So much history in Halifax. How do you

27:36respect the history and the community and build on it? And that's what we're trying to do. When I give you an example of St. Joseph Square, that's what we're trying to do — we're trying to create respectful and quality development that builds on it. Does everyone see what we do that way? Probably not. In fact, I know not. But we're putting our best foot forward every day. Height certainly — you know, we live on a peninsula, there's a limited amount of land, and sometimes

28:09to make it financially viable to do a project, there's a certain level of density that needs to be achieved and sometimes height needs to be a part of that equation. You know, again, personally — Halifax is, like I said, when I graduated there was very little work here if you wanted to work in the construction industry. And boy, has it ever — we can't find enough people to work in the industry. So it's exciting to see that change, to say that maybe

28:46my own son, if he chooses that kind of a path in life, hopefully the opportunities are still here then. But to see that — even if it's not in that — the amount of opportunities that are here in Halifax just because of the growth of the city itself, there's thousands of career paths with great jobs right here. And that was not the case before. So for someone in my age group, the change is just so exciting and so positive, because Halifax is a viable place to live

29:16and to be successful and to create a wonderful career, and that was only an option for the lucky few before. Do you guys have some other buildings on Spring Garden that you're still waiting for approval on, that are 29, 30 stories? We do, yes. Yeah, we have — that'll be by far the biggest project we've ever undertaken. It's the full length of a city block. Yeah. The project's called Spring Garden West, and it's gone through some levels of approvals. That was one I did get to bring to

29:49council — that was an exciting process for me to be part of. And there are still many, many hurdles to jump through in terms of the approvals. I believe we first brought that to council two years ago now. You know, back to talking about the lifespan of this — we started working on that probably about two or three years before that, with public engagements. I'm thinking — I don't want to say the dates, I might get it wrong — it might be 2015, 2016 when we really started working on the project. And here we are,

30:26it's still in our office, it's still a big part of what's going on, and we're still quite a few years away from breaking ground. Yeah. And I'm glad you touched on that, because I think this conversation — and again with The George and, you know, 10 years — I just think it'll be needed for the audience, for the listeners, to hear what it's like as a developing company, your vision and stuff, and the patience. Because all people see is, oh, the building's opening, it's a big day,

30:55grand opening, top-out party, whatever. But Louie and yourself were thinking about that sometimes 15 years before. Yeah. So a project like The George — we started breaking ground there, it will be three years ago in August when we broke ground. That project was in the works for 10 years prior to that. So the actual construction activity in terms of timeline or duration — although it's the most intense timeline — it's actually just a small snapshot of the entire project. And that's what I'm getting at. What goes

31:28on under the surface that nobody would ever think about — that's what Dexel really does. You're planning these things years and years ahead. Yeah, they live with us for a long time. And you develop an attachment to these projects. They really do become somewhat like a child, because it's a concept, and one of the things we often say as well is, you have to believe. Because the amount of no's that you get — it's always no from the beginning. You

32:00have an idea and everybody's telling you no — it's not going to work, you can't do it, absolutely not, we don't want it here, it's not good for the city, it's going to take too long, it's not financially feasible — and you just need to figure out how to turn those into yeses. And you have to believe you're going to do it. And that's really the magic of this, and that's the magic the entire way through. You have to be confident, you have to

32:27believe you will do it, and through that belief others will start to believe. Yeah. And it will happen. But it will take a very long time to happen. A lot of tenacity. Yeah. To me — I'll geek out on architecture, I love it, and I love The George building. It just looks amazing. You drive up on that — it's awesome. And a lot of the buildings you guys put up do have that extra architectural quality. So I've got to give credit to the guys at

32:56Fathom who did that concept design. I've seen that. Yeah. For The George. So, you know, we can take credit for a lot, yeah. But that — so they worked in tandem with your team? We work very closely with any firm. We've worked with them, we've worked with MLSA, we've worked with Michael Napier, we've worked with — I'm going to leave people out by saying this, but we work with a lot of different architectural and design firms. Always a very collaborative approach. So

33:29on the design side, we work exclusively in BIM, in 3D. We always have. We started there about 18 years ago. Which is exciting, because we learned a lot of things and were kind of an early adopter of it. Because it seems like everybody's going to that now — it's the way to go. The whole design process is really turning on its head right now, and the whole construction process — some things are good, some things aren't. But I think generally we're going in a

34:00positive direction. BIM is a big part of that. It's very powerful in terms of the level that you can model at, the level of coordination you can do. So we're working on design for a project right now called The Press Block, which is just close to where we are right now on Granville and Barrington and George, right on the corner. There's a heritage building there — we talk about heritage and the challenges — but we're working on the design there and it's a

34:29entirely collaborative approach. We host the model, we do a lot of the architectural design. Fathom partnered with us on that again and did some of the concept designs. We take that and we turn it into a BIM model. Then we work with our structural engineers — we're working with Campbell Comeau on this project, they model the structure, we grab their model, we bring it in and we house that. We're working with Equilibrium, who's doing the mechanical and electrical engineering — they design that in BIM, we grab that, we put in

34:59the structure, and we're meeting every two weeks going through and sharing models and developing the design together. And we really do build the entire building digitally before we build it physically. And we bring in contractors that we like to work with, or we've had great success with in the past, and we bring them in at key times and ask them for their input. What do you think — are we on the right

35:27path? Because there's no replacement for that on-the-ground experience. You talk to an HVAC contractor and they say, "Well yeah, you can do it that way, but here's what we can do — we can do it this way and it's going to be a lot faster, a lot more cost effective for you." So it's very collaborative. It's extremely collaborative. It's flattering that you've invited me here to represent Dexel, but I'm such a small piece of this whole

35:56wheel. There's so many people involved, even early in the design phase, that make it happen. Yeah. Well, I think it's great that you said that, because even as experienced as you are, as big a company as Dexel — someone like you is very upfront about there being so many people involved. We're all such a small part. There are maybe thousands of people involved, even on preliminary stuff. There's so many people involved in

36:24preliminary stuff. And you've said a couple of times, "Dexel's a big company" — we don't think of ourselves as a big company. And the number of employees at Dexel — we're not really a big company, right? We're a small group but we're part of a really big team. Yeah. It's our banner that's on the building, yeah, but as far as employee count, we're the tiniest portion out of everybody that's involved. Yeah. It's such a team effort to build these buildings,

36:55and the level of complexity — it is impossible for any one person to be an expert on all aspects of the building. Absolutely. So you have to rely on people who are experts in their field. And so much delegating, right? There is. Yeah. The other fun part, though, is we're always challenging each other, because we want to do the best we can all the time. And when you build a group with that mindset — making each other better — you make each other better, you challenge each other, and

37:26you try to produce that product that The George is — that you just get excited about. You get jazzed up. Yeah, I am. And you just — I try to surround myself with people who are passionate about it too, and then you get excited about getting out of bed, you're ready to work on the project. That's what the show really was — the goal of our team and all the people that helped get the show started is just to get people together

37:52that are passionate about the industry. Because when you talk about it I get to sit here and listen all day. We could geek out about construction all day. It's such a fun career and field to work in, because the results are so concrete — yeah, sometimes literally. No pun intended. But you get to see the fruit of your labor, and it's there long after. And it builds on itself. You do one project and you do another and

38:25suddenly you look back and you're saying, "Man, I've done six or seven of these projects," and you see how you learn from each one, that each one gets a little bit better. And it'd be hard to find too many other careers that are as rewarding in that way. Yeah. It's extremely difficult — it is not an easy career path. I would say anybody who's thinking about construction management or development as a career path — it is not easy. But it is

38:55very rewarding. Yeah. For The George — when you guys get that approval from the city and you're ready to put a hole in the ground, have the architects just rendered everything together to present to the city? Or do they wait till, okay, we're green-lit — now let's get this thing fully designed? Or what happens first, the chicken or the egg? How does that work? That's part of believing, I guess, because we really stack things up pretty

39:26tight. If you waited for each step to be finished before you started the next step, we wouldn't be here talking about The George — it would still be another 10 years away. That's the risk, I guess — that's part of the risk too. It is. And that's part of what makes it hard, because you are taking that risk. I'll give you an example with The George.

39:58I had the construction permit and we broke ground about two days after we had the permit. And we did that because we lined it up and said, "We're going to get the permit — that's it. We have to go, we have to start." We're lining up the contract, we're telling the contractor this is the starting date, and we better get this permit. So we're going to work our butts off to make sure we get it. And that was a particularly tight timing —

40:23fast. But those are — you know, that's the moment you celebrate later. Okay, that worked. That was close. But usually you don't try to time it that close. But you've got to stack things up and you've got to work to the dates. And it's the same as you go all the way through the construction process — if you wait till you finish your structure to start your next step, that project, instead of being three years, again it would have been six or seven years.

40:49Yeah. To do it you really have to stack things and you have to push yourself along it. Yeah. Constantly get ahead — constantly months and months ahead. In the position that I'm in and where I'm looking at it, you need years ahead. Yeah. Just even lead times on materials — we won't bring that up, but look, at any time, best of times, we're

41:19bringing in product from all over the world. And when you do that you're three, four, or five months out. Like the stone on The George — where's that from, is that from Europe or something? Am I wrong? You are. It's from Turkey. Yeah, the granite on the bottom courses — from Turkey. Yeah. The countertops are from China. I mean, most products that are here are from all over the world. But the difference is

41:48usually you're buying it through someone that's already brought it in, it's warehoused here. But at the volume that we're buying, a lot of things we're going direct and we're sourcing it from somewhere, or we're sourcing from a broker who deals with that. But the lead times are very long. You need to plan well in advance. And it does become a weird mindset — it makes time seem to go by very fast. It's just about summer now, or

42:13just kind of getting into that, and my mindset is — we're building Mumford Road right now, which is 22 West — that's the new name. It's going great. But my mind is already on getting ready for winter. That's where my head's at right now. Whatever's happening in summer — look, the site super's looking after that, the PM's looking after that. I'm thinking about, okay, what's coming up in the wintertime? How are we going to open the building,

42:40when are people going to move in? You just — yeah, it's a different timeline that you have to think about. Yeah. It's like you get one big day where you have a grand opening or something, then the next day it's like you're off to the next two or three things that you have to look six months down the road. Yeah. You just — it's a different time scale than I think probably most people deal with in a day-to-day. Yeah, yeah. A little

43:04more about The George. We talked about some of the materials and the countertops from China, the stone from Turkey, and just — what are some other things about the design? We could talk about real estate and the suites and all that, and that information is obviously on the Paramount website and all that. But maybe just about the construction materials and some of the neat design things about The George. I mean, it speaks for itself, but just

43:30I would say some of the unique and challenging pieces are the basic structure of the design. Fundamentally, The George has this idea of volumes kind of skewed on top of each other, and you'll see that when you look at it. The tower volume — each of the volumes has its own characteristics. So the tower is window wall — it's a system from Better Value Glazing, they're based out of Ontario. It's a glazing system, they come down for the install as well.

44:05The installers are local, okay, but they do come down and support them — they're their installation teams. It's a big glazing job. But that whole volume is actually skewed and sitting kind of off of the building below. Yeah. It's off of the grid line — so on one side of the building it actually projects out about seven feet. It's not a typical curtain wall. It's different than — well, it's not the glazing itself, it's actually the concrete structure that actually shifts off-grid when you get to

44:37the tower. And the challenges of that structural design and how to execute that and how to create the illusion that there's a box kind of tilted — sure — and offset. Reminds me a little bit of the library. Yeah, does that make sense? It does. In our office we called it the library detail. Yeah. The library — the Halifax Central Library. So it was actually cantilevered out — how did they do that, how did they take a couple of volumes of boxes and twist and

45:09turn them and have them cantilever over each other? Because structure doesn't work that way — you're not just taking containers and stacking them. Plus your site super's having a hell of a time because nothing is in line. Yeah. That's a starting point, right — nothing is in line. Well, the library is its own beast, at least ours was just shifted, it wasn't twisted. But the logistics of doing that and designing it was very challenging. I remember working with our lead architect,

45:35Nick Leprecha, working through it — and this was, you know, the library detail. How do we do this? How do we get the parapets and create this look? What if you touch —

45:49he probably did. So that was one challenge. And then we look at the other pieces of it. There's the ceramic tile system — that's kind of a white volume — and then we have masonry that runs down along Pepperell. So the white that you see on the building is all a ceramic tile cladding. Terracotta, or what is it? It's ceramics — terracotta would be something a little

46:16bit different. Yeah. It's called Tempio, the product. Okay. That's what's on there. And it's kind of hung on an aluminum rail system. But whenever you have these multiple different cladding types and these different shifts in volume and shape, it creates a wonderful building like that, because it breaks up the mass. It's an extremely large building — it's a 30,000 square foot footprint — but you don't feel it when you're walking around because it interacts with the street like several smaller buildings kind of

46:46clustered together. Yeah, right. That's the magic of the building — it was also the challenge of the building. So you have three major cladding types, and then within that there were three or four other minor accent cladding pieces on it. And these are all executed by different trades — they're different materials from different places — and bringing that all together. Anyone who's in the design world knows the devil is in the details, and how you marry two different systems together. You're doing the same system

47:14and you've got a handful of details and you're repeating them. But every time you stop one cladding and move to another, you have to maintain the integrity of your envelope. The transitions — the more transitions you have, the harder it is. Scopes will even get missed: who's doing the caulking there, who's wrapping that — it's very difficult catching all of them. And that's a big part of what we try to do — make sure we have all the scopes covered.

47:38And then back to that communication piece — when it gets to the site, working with the different installers. I'm not on site every day, but I do spend a lot of time on site, and I'll tell you, I develop a lot of relationships — personal relationships, friends. They're very professional but they're people that you bond with. You work with them for a year or more a lot of times, many times. Some of these we work with for three or four years on a project, maybe.

48:08And multiple projects with many of the same people — it's a very small community that builds in Halifax and builds multi-unit. Sometimes you hire a different company and it's, "Oh, hey, you moved over there? Great," you know, you know that person. Yeah. You develop these relationships, even working through challenges, because you do the best you can on the design side. Sometimes these things hit site, and then you get two people together that are working on the two systems and they're looking at each other saying, "Yeah,

48:35that looks good on paper, but" — you know, they're sequencing it: "Well, I've got to do this little part first and then I'll do this." And you're all working together. Yeah, 100 percent. What about the energy side of The George? You have a partnership with Efficiency Nova Scotia for that building, or is it — you work closely with them on all your buildings? We do, and they work closely with most developers, right? Efficiency Nova Scotia has been really great in supporting the

49:07development community in producing some energy-efficient buildings and helping support that financially. So we work through many of the things that we're trying to do. The building does have natural gas in it — the corridors are heated using natural gas. Efficiency Nova Scotia, though, is primarily looking at electrical consumption and savings. It's not so much about fuel switching — it's about creating a more efficient electrical building, primarily focused around that. That building is VRF, which is variable refrigerant flow,

49:50what it stands for. It's a very efficient electrical system. You'd liken it to a heat pump in a house, where you have a compressor outside and you have your wall unit blowing — this is more — very similar concept. Air conditioning and heat in the same system? Exactly. So you have one compressor outside that may service three or four different apartments. Instead of it being on the wall it's ducted in the ceiling. That's the second job we did in VRF — we're doing a few of them now. And

50:18that's kind of the trend in Halifax. It is one of the most efficient systems you can have, and of course Efficiency Nova Scotia supports it, which helps to go that direction. Now for us, it's always been a mandate to build as efficiently as possible, because we're owning and operating the buildings. When we look at the cost of construction, we're really looking at it on a 25-year horizon. Does it make sense to invest more capital now if it's going to be more cost-effective

50:48over the lifetime of the system? That's the way we look at making these decisions. What's the exterior envelope at The George — is it spray foam with an air barrier? What's the assembly? Yeah, so it depends on the wall system, because there's so much variation in different locations. Everything below the tower is a steel-stud wall on the outside. We do a spray foam, then we do a batt — it's a fiberglass batt inside of that. And then on the outside of the

51:16studs, we're actually using an inch and a half of rigid insulation, and then depending on the system there'd be a 5/8 drywall over that, and then dense glass. And then we'd have our air-permeable vapor barrier. And the rigid insulation was a design choice? Yeah. I wouldn't say it's unique to us, but it's definitely not necessarily market standard. It's something that we kind of took and ran with over the years. And that's really to reduce thermal bridging, which is a

51:50really big issue. And the new energy code is addressing that now — that's largely been ignored. Any kind of steel component that's passing through your insulation just kills most of the value of the insulation. So all the cladding and masonry guys — are they using thermal clips? There is just a regular clip with — they're using a regular clip with a master caulking, but the clip is mounted on top of a high-density foam, so the foam is acting as a thermal break, right? So yeah, if you want a thermally broken clip

52:23— which is actually some of the systems we're looking at now — we're actually moving towards a more traditional wall system with a thermally broken clip. So that's the other way you can approach it. Geeking out on building now. Yeah, we are. But things are changing a lot around this. This is an area that the code has changed, and I think you're going to see a lot of changes in buildings. There are a lot of things that builders have been doing — ourselves

52:48included — that simply aren't cutting it. The standards are very high, yeah. And we really have to think outside of the box on how to achieve them. Yeah. It's now not something that we're doing because it makes sense financially — it's something that we're doing because it makes sense financially and because it's high quality. Well, because you have to — your building won't be approved if it's not there. So it's going to raise the bar for everyone. Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, you're going to own the building

53:16after anyway, so why not build it right? It's true. Added costs 5, 10 years down the road. As we're talking about efficiency, actually, one of the things that we're doing now — I think we'll see how it's received by the market — The George has this, and our project before, Flynn Flats, has it as well. We're doing suite-by-suite utility metering. So the traditional model for an apartment building is that the heating and cooling would often be carried by the landlord. You would have

53:46an all-in — you might pay your own electrical bill but your other heating and cooling and hot water would be by the landlord. Yeah. And what the science is supporting is that user-pay is the best way to create a more efficient building. And it just kind of makes sense when you think about it. If I can save a few bucks and close my window when my AC is on, I'm going to be more apt to do that. Whereas when the landlord is paying for

54:15the AC, it's — not to say that you're going to be wasteful because you're not paying for it, but it doesn't affect you. Maybe you don't think about it. But when you get that bill and you say, "Whoa, that was a big heating bill this month" — it registers. Okay, maybe I'll turn the thermostat up a bit and close that window. Or vice versa in the winter. So we're really moving in that direction, and that's the model that we're moving

54:40forward with — doing these kind of user-pay setups. And we're seeing the benefits of that with Flynn Flats. It's only a smaller building, 43 units, and really excited to see the data. Because we're always looking back at the data too, and how does that building compare and perform relative to the previous one? So we're really interested to see, on a larger scale, is that hard data to gather? To achieve sufficient data for metrics? Well, when it's the landlord paying it's not too bad, but you just get a lump sum —

55:13this is your gas bill, this is your water bill. Even this way it's not too bad. We're partnering right now with Wyse Metering, who brings in the meters. They're installed — they're Wi-Fi meters, they connect in the suites. We put them in line in the water supply, and we measure electrical current and all the equipment. So you get a spreadsheet output saying, "This is

55:41this is what your building is doing." And we also do it on the house power and the house utilities as well. So we invest in building controls that we track and trend, and we get some really great data. Afterwards, we'll revisit it two years down the road or a year down the road. And you never get it right the first time — you think you have it nailed, and then

56:08you go through a winter and you realize that's not really doing what it's supposed to. Why is that acting that way? And then you go and tune it up and adjust set points. So the data is available — it's available because of the way we design. And it's not too hard to get your hands on it if you set it up properly. It'll be easier for you guys to gather that data with your model. With our model, yes — it's very easy to get the data. And it's great. Like I said, we're

56:36designing The Press Block right now. What do we do? Let's go see what Flynn Flats said. What heating system are we thinking of? Well, we have that heating system in a building — what does it look like, how does that actually perform? Yeah. What's the lighting at The George — is it all LED? It's all LED lights. Yeah, yeah. It's integrated LED in the suites. In common areas it's incandescent fixtures with LED bulbs. Yeah, but we've pretty much moved

57:06to LED. Parking garages are now on occupancy sensors. There in the George it's three levels underground. Yeah. So what about Mumford — is that more than three? No, Mumford is — it's only — well, it's two levels below grade. But yeah, bigger footprint there too. Bigger footprint — sorry, two levels below grade. But yeah, Mumford's actually the same-size footprint, yeah, actually a little bit smaller. Yeah. It's a tall building — it's 22 stories as opposed to the George's 15 — but it's actually a smaller building, which is

57:36just short really, okay. Yeah. Just — big like The George, yeah. When you guys do parkades, do you typically paint the parkade and do epoxy on the floors? I'm just curious, like sometimes you have to, sometimes you don't — depending on the building? Colors — just your preference? It's your preference. We do what's called a bridge-deck solution on our parking garages. So we actually apply a membrane — a hot rubberized asphalt or a torch-on — and then we'll

58:05pour four inches of concrete over top of that, and that protects our structural slabs — protects all the rebar that's in the concrete from the salt that's coming off the cars. Yeah. As far as painting it — I mean, we paint. This is front-loading work on the job site, or stacking things. As soon as that parkade is poured and stripped, we're in there spray-painting the whole thing so the whole thing is painted white right from day one. We put the membrane down, we'll

58:30put the finished lights up. They're still building the building — we'll paint the lines and everything. And that way, when everybody comes in and works in the building, it's a finished parkade. Yeah. And then everybody treats it like a parkade. Yeah, we all know what it's like to drive into one and what the rules and social norms are in a parking garage. We didn't used to do that — we used to leave them, finish them towards the end. It's more stress on the

58:54site team when you're trying to do everything at the end. So that was one reason to do it. But it's just — you pull into some parkades and you know, in massive buildings here in the city, some of the biggest — some are painted, some aren't, some are sealed, some aren't. Yeah, what's the difference in that? The seal is cheaper for sure, doesn't last as long. There's a lot of maintenance with those coatings on the floors — yeah, you have to

59:19touch them up every year. Studded tires are really rough on the finish too, yeah. So the bridge-deck solution we do is a little bit more money, but it's one and done — it's bulletproof. We have buildings we've done this in that are 20 years old now and we haven't had to touch them. Yeah. And then you're trying to make the parking as bright as — because, yeah, you were talking about the lighting. It's just nice to have a bright parking garage. It is. I don't know,

59:46a lot of them are, but there's something I can't describe — a bright parking garage just feels safe, feels clean, and it kind of elevates the whole building. It's one of those little things. Maybe you don't notice it every day, but if you didn't have it — after a while it'd be like — there's an impression when you go into any building around town,

60:14public or private building. When you drive into the parking garage and it's clean and bright and well-lit, it sets a tone for the rest of the building. I mean, when you're driving into a building and it's kind of dingy, your expectations aren't that high for what's to follow. Yeah. It's like a psychological factor. It is, yeah. It is. I mean, Queen's Marque is a great example of that — their parkade is incredibly professional. The first time I went in that building, that was my experience. I drive

60:39through the parkade first thing and immediately I'm like, okay, you know, this is a good start. Great start. Yeah. They invested some money and some time and care here — the rest of the building must be really nice. Yeah. That's interesting. That's the other aspect of this business — it messes with your mind, because you cannot go anywhere. You've probably noticed — you're staring up at the ceiling? Yeah, you absolutely notice everything that people do that's interesting, and you start

61:10to notice flaws, you start to look around. And it's funny because, you know, as we have people coming up in the business that are growing into these roles, it's one of the things they often comment on. It's like, "I can't even go to a friend's house and not be looking around." It's hard for me not to comment on something. You're thinking it. It is. And you've got to check yourself, because 90 percent of people you're around, if you're not at work —

61:36they don't care, and they don't want to hear about it. They do not want you to go around and pick out that this little detail isn't right. That's not a great way to make friends.

61:49Yeah, I can hear you there — I've been on the other end of that a time or two. So listen, I think we could talk for days — this is extremely enjoyable. I want to be respectful of your time. Is there anything else that you'd like to touch on as far as Dexel, anything we didn't cover about The George, and maybe just give a shout-out to your social media presence if you like, or just to finish up.

62:14Sure. Well, I guess if I were to finish up with a message, it's: this is a great industry to work in and it's in need of people. There's so much demand right now. And many of us — I think the entire industry has been working really hard to professionalize ourselves. I think the image that the public has of the construction industry is not really correct, it's not representative. A lot of people have an image of construction as someone holding a road

62:52sign or driving a truck or running an excavator or pouring concrete. And these are all great trades, but that's all they see. It's very stereotypical. And it's very much the thinking of, "Okay, if I'm going to be in construction I'm going to do this kind of thing." There's construction management, there's construction finance, there's accounting, there's architecture — it is endless, the careers you can have in construction. All of these paths give you that same sense of satisfaction. I can tell you in our office,

63:24everyone from reception to the owners just gets jazzed about these projects and gets excited about them, is proud to be part of them. So you're helping build the city. You are, you are. And your family sees it and your friends see it. And then Dan calls you and asks you to be on a podcast — you know, you're recognized because you're part of it at whatever level you're at. And I'd love for that to be a career path that's in

63:54mind for people who are younger. I don't see it being promoted as much as I wish it was. I know the NSCC does such an awesome job with their programs that they put together. There are great jobs, great-paying jobs, really rewarding jobs, and you can stay right here at home. What's not to love about that? And it's a great message from you for our youth that are thinking about it. So I guess if there's a closing message, that would be it. And the

64:25opportunities are really endless — the sky's the limit. Okay. I told you I started shoveling gravel. Yes. I went and did an engineering degree, but if you really want to be successful in this business you need to learn all parts of it. And you need to have the humility to — to shovel gravel, to do anything for a while. Yeah. And that — you know, like the humility to be a fool one day to be a master. Exactly. The same goes, and Louie, when I started, he's

64:52a crafty guy. "Go down there and shovel" — and why was it? It wasn't to shovel gravel, it was to learn and understand how the grading drawings work. Yeah. And some kids might have done that for a week and been like, "You know what, I'm better than this." Yeah, really. And honestly, the first year or so, maybe it was gravel, maybe it was lugging two-by-fours, or unloading a truck. And you just do what you need to do, and you kind of

65:17look back on it a year later and you realize how much you learned when you were doing it, because you're talking to people, you're absorbing things, you're seeing how things are done. So I would say always have the humility to take whatever opportunity is there, learn, and say yes to as many opportunities as come your way. The path that leads you down can just be a really incredible path. Awesome. Yeah. So www.dexel.ca — yes. You're on Instagram? Yeah.

65:51Dexel.ca. Yeah. You're on Instagram. Yeah. Paramount's on there too. Yeah, yeah. Anything else? We're on LinkedIn — we try to stay up to date on LinkedIn and Instagram. Yeah, so check us out there. We're also CANS members. All right. We are, yeah. I'm definitely — I love that. The team at CANS, they're incredible. And I'm involved there with the Government Relations Committee. My wife is actually the chair at CANS, so we're — as a family,

66:26I met your wife — I met you and your wife. Yeah, so — she's in control, you know. Yes, for sure. And she specializes in construction insurance, so we're very much a construction family. Talk about the different career paths you can have — the kitchen table? Oh jeez. It can get heated, yeah. Look, we see things differently, of course — being the boots on the ground versus the insurer. Our perspectives on risk, reward, and things —

66:56there's always some great topics and discussions around that. Yeah. But yeah, there's a great example of two extremely different careers in the same industry. And yeah, one end of the spectrum to the other — it's just a great example of what you were just talking about. Yeah, yeah. Listen, Kris, thanks so much for doing this — extremely enjoyable, really appreciate your time. It's been a real pleasure. It's been great chatting with you. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me, and yeah, thank you for doing this

67:23podcast. I think this is an important thing for Halifax and for the community. Yeah. And I love the guitar intro. Thanks, man, I appreciate that. Yeah, still plugging away, trying to be a musician, you know — never let the dream go. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram — Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review,

67:56we'd love to engage with you.