{"id":821,"date":"2016-04-19T13:29:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T13:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minutes.machine.market\/?p=821"},"modified":"2016-04-19T13:29:27","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T13:29:27","slug":"building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/","title":{"rendered":"Building boom has tower crane industry nearing capacity, searching for operators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Look toward any horizon and chances are there\u2019s a crane in your sights, probably several. That\u2019s because there are more than 150 fixed tower cranes in Metro Vancouver, a tie for the last peak the region saw during the pre-Olympics condo boom.<\/p>\n

VIDEO HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cVancouver\u2019s as busy right now as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d says Ron Karras of RMG Formwork.<\/p>\n

“In 2005, 2006, 2007 we were getting pretty scarce for resources and we’re approaching that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the high-rise activity is fueled by the City of Burnaby, where staff granted a record $879-million worth of building permits last year alone.<\/p>\n

“Our growth is by design. We’ve been planning to have higher density around our transit centres,\u201d says Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurnaby is lucky to have four town centres and all of them are accepting higher density in order to protect our local single family neighbourhoods. We don’t have a lot of choices in how we’re going to develop and how we’re going to accept new people to our city.”<\/p>\n

As newcomers flock to the region and city officials green-light developments, the construction industry is scrambling to keep up.<\/p>\n

“All of industry right now is struggling to get enough talented people to build what’s out there,\u201d says Karras.<\/p>\n

A rookie crane operator can start out making $40 per hour and within a few years can easily earn an annual income in the low six figures. But it\u2019s not as easy as signing up for a course at a technical school. The BC Association for Crane Safety<\/a> demands construction site experience alongside written and practical tests. Then candidates are expected to spend at least 200 hours as riggers, loading the cranes and getting familiar with how they work.<\/p>\n

Then comes the hard part: climbing hundreds of feet into the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t find it intimidating,\u201d says crane operator Tyler Strachan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I did at the very beginning, but not anymore. I got used to it pretty quick and it\u2019s good money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strachan is a big, burly guy but he\u2019s remarkably fast climbing up and down the painted metal ladders arranged in landings that take him up to his operator\u2019s box at the top. CTV News interviewed him atop a 200-foot (60-metre) fixed tower crane, but he\u2019s worked on ones as tall as 550 feet (167 metres). Strachan says that kind of vantage point provides a special perspective of large-scale projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching the progress of the job and then seeing when it\u2019s finished. Every week, seeing what you\u2019ve accomplished. It\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his 10 years as an operator, Strachan has seen many towers and tower clusters come together, but one man has seen entire communities grow from nothing.<\/p>\n

At 85 years old, Val Coupal still operates his crane rental business.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan barely keep up [with demand] right now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Over more than four decades in the business, Coupal has provided the tower cranes used to build a staggering 556 high-rises throughout the region. He says there\u2019s a connection between his equipment and the scale of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cranes are about four times bigger than what we started with. We started with little 82-foot (25-metre) units and now we have cranes that can (extend) 250 feet (76 metres).\u201d<\/p>\n

They are big cranes for big projects. Burnaby is strategically planning for dozens more towers along SkyTrain corridors to accommodate an estimated 100,000 new residents by 2030.<\/p>\n

“This new growth is allowing us to have all sorts of new amenities in our city so we’re creating new trails, new bike trails, new recreational facilities,\u201d says Corrigan.<\/p>\n

“We’re no longer that bedroom community to Vancouver, we’re now a city that’s able to state its case.”<\/p>\n

\"Penny<\/a>\u00a0Penny Daflos<\/a>, Reporter<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look toward any horizon and chances are there\u2019s a crane in your sights, probably several. That\u2019s because there are more than 150 fixed tower cranes in Metro Vancouver, a tie for the last peak the region saw during the pre-Olympics condo boom. VIDEO HERE \u201cVancouver\u2019s as busy right now as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d says Ron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[2,3,5,12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding boom has tower crane industry nearing capacity, searching for operators - MachineMarket Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building boom has tower crane industry nearing capacity, searching for operators - MachineMarket Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Look toward any horizon and chances are there\u2019s a crane in your sights, probably several. That\u2019s because there are more than 150 fixed tower cranes in Metro Vancouver, a tie for the last peak the region saw during the pre-Olympics condo boom. VIDEO HERE \u201cVancouver\u2019s as busy right now as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d says Ron […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MachineMarket Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-19T13:29:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/tower-crane-vancover.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"862\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"CraneMarket | Cranes for Sale and Rent\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/crane-market-logo.png\",\"width\":282,\"height\":81,\"caption\":\"CraneMarket | Cranes for Sale and Rent\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"MachineMarket Blog\",\"description\":\"Machine News\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/tower-crane-vancover.jpg\",\"width\":862,\"height\":500},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/\",\"name\":\"Building boom has tower crane industry nearing capacity, searching for operators - MachineMarket Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-19T13:29:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-19T13:29:27+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d55314291bc2800387533231d1e82150\"},\"headline\":\"Building boom has tower crane industry nearing capacity, searching for operators\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-19T13:29:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-19T13:29:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#webpage\"},\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/building-boom-has-tower-crane-industry-nearing-capacity-searching-for-operators\/#primaryimage\"},\"articleSection\":\"Constuction & Business News,Crane & Lifting News,Equipment & Construction Videos,Workforce News\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d55314291bc2800387533231d1e82150\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6761c958e8b054582d0855a0e4bc5407?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}