Project · Toronto · 2025
Eight-floor retrofit for the International Language Academy of Canada in the heart of downtown Toronto. Drydel ran project management alongside the GC, Confra Complete Construction, and delivered the civil scope — structural cuts, vertical HVAC pathway, scaffolding, and trade coordination across the full vertical run.
ILAC was consolidating its Toronto operations into a full-floor-plate headquarters at 120 Bloor St E. — eight occupied floors above grade, a heritage-adjacent building, and a building-systems package that had to be replaced top-to-bottom: new rooftop HVAC, full-building ductwork, electrical and mechanical re-runs, and a complete interior fit-out across reception, classrooms, admin, washrooms and student common areas.
The civil and coordination piece was where the real risk lived. New rooftop units meant new vertical pathways for ductwork — and that meant cutting through eight existing floor slabs, in sequence, without compromising the structure or stalling the rest of the trades working underneath.
Project management. Drydel ran the job alongside Confra Complete Construction from demolition through to completion — site supervision, trade-partner coordination, planning and sequencing, compliance and permit approvals, site safety, delivery of materials and heavy-equipment lifting, shoring design, and full MEP trade organization across HVAC, electrical and mechanical.
Civil work. Our civil crew cut a continuous vertical pathway through all eight floors for the new HVAC distribution, sequenced floor-by-floor so the structural reinforcement could be installed and inspected before the next slab was opened. We ran the scaffolding plan and managed the full trade matrix alongside the structural piece.
The result: a clean handover, no structural surprises, and project completion two weeks ahead of the contracted schedule — on a roughly $20M total package.
A walk-through of the build — from the structural cuts and slab work, through trade coordination, into the finished interior: signature curved ceilings, ring-light atriums, the burgundy stepped feature wall, the marble elevator lobby, and the mountain-mural corridor.
