Pearson Airport Parking Garage

  • Client

    Greater Toronto Airports Authority 

  • Region

    Central Canada

  • Area Office

    Toronto

  • Year Completed

    2002

  • Size

    3,360,000 sq. ft. 

  • Sector

    Civil

  • Sub-Sector

    Transit & Transportation

The Story

The Terminal 1 GTAA Parking Garage at Toronto Pearson International Airport is an eight-level post-tensioned structure. Approximately 90,000 cubic metres of concrete was placed in Stage I alone. The completed parking garage has a total capacity for 12,600 vehicles. The garage has been designed to exceed CAN/CSA-S413 garage standards in order to produce a facility that, with proper maintenance, will have a significant service life.

The thickness of the concrete cover over reinforcing steel and the use of a traffic topping on all levels are some of the design features that will help prevent chlorides from migrating into the concrete slab - thereby reducing the risk of corrosion of the reinforcement steel. Each level is approximately 420,000 square feet and is subdivided into thirteen independent building-like structures bound by expansion joints.

Due to the unique sequencing requirements of post-tensioning stressing, no adjoining slabs were able to be formed and poured until the preceding slab was stressed. The expansion joints totalled 25,300 linear feet with 19,200 linear feet of perimeter steel vehicle bumper guard protection.

As many as four tower cranes assisted in materials management along with two labour and material hoists for construction operations. The garage contains twelve elevators, four moving walkways and six escalators.

Additionally, a state-of-the-art Parking Access and Revenue Control System was installed with features such as pay-on-foot, automatic vehicle identification (AVI), and license plate recognition (LPR) technologies.