Gregor Robertson, former mayor of Vancouver, believes pre-fabricated insulated structural panels could be a solution to delivering commercial and multi-family projects faster and cheaper and more environmentally friendly – and a major U.S. real estate developer apparently agrees.
Utah-based PEG Companies has partnered with Vancouver startup Nexii Building Solutions Inc. to deliver the exterior building envelope for a new 172-room Marriott hotel in Nanaimo, according to Robertson, who is now Nexii’s executive vice-president of strategy and partnerships.
The nine-storey Courtyard by Marriott is being built adjacent to Nanaimo’s conference centre. The bottom two floors are conventional pour-in-place concrete but the exterior of the top seven floors will be constructed with the new Nexii panels.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with PEG on this project,” Robertson said, noting that is both the tallest and largest projects that Nexiii has supplied the building envelope for.
Nexii will deliver 140 walls panels to the Nanaimo site from its recently completed 90,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Squamish, B.C.. The Nexii system uses precision-fitted structural panels that, Robertson said, are more thermally efficient and less carbon-intensive than concrete.
The panels are a sandwich of solid insulation wrapped in a half-inch of Nexitte, which becomes both the exterior and interior finishing.
Nexitte, a hard-surface proprietary material “is our secret sauce,” Robertson told Western Investor. ”It basically replaces drywall on the inside and concrete or other siding on the outside of the building. Nexitte is fire and water resilient, like concrete, but it is lighter weight and has reduced carbon emissions.”
According to PEG, using Nexii for the building envelope will trim the hotel’s construction timeline by eight to 10 weeks.
“The Nexii system will also significantly reduce the climate impact of the hotel’s construction and reduce on-site construction waste to near-zero,” said Robert Schmidt, president of the development division at PEG. The U.S. company owns and manages nearly 5,000 hotel rooms and 2,800 multi-family units across North America, plus other commercial real estate, and has US$1.4 billion in its development pipeline.
"Given the size of this project and its location on Vancouver Island, the cost and time to install a traditional exterior system was prohibitive. Nexii overcame that challenge and, even better than that, the product has increased the project’s thermal properties, which contributes to a more sustainable outcome,” Schmidt said in a statement.
The high-performance Nexii building panels are precision manufactured to client specifications using 3D software and then put together on site “like jigsaw pieces to create an airtight building envelope,” Robertson explained.
The former mayor said Nexii could be used for commercial or multi-family construction, including high-rise curtain walls.
“The sky is the limit as far as height is concerned,” Robertson said.
“What drew me to Nexii is the combination of speed to build, the cost savings with that, along with the reduced impact on the environment. We know we need to decarbonize our buildings but we need solutions that are cost-effective and increase the affordability, rather than the opposite,” he said.
He noted that many municipalities, like Vancouver, are mandating energy savings into building requirements.
Robertson, however, said is the immediate cost savings in labour and materials that is likely drawing big clients like PEG and Marriott to Nexii.
“There is also significant savings, including financing and insurance, in getting a commercial building completed faster,” he said, “It means the business can open sooner and start bringing in revenue.”
Nexii has been contracted by quick-food restaurant chains Starbucks and Popeyes to build stand-alone restaurants. In December 2020, the use of the panels allowed a Starbucks in Abbotsford to be largely completed in just six days, Robertson said.
He added that a major bank recently contracted Nexii to provide a complete pre-fab building package for a two-storey branch in Metro Vancouver.
In March, Nexii announced that its new $50 million manufacturing plant will be built on the southern end of Vancouver Island, and is expected to open next year. Along with the Squamish plant, it will join Nexii’s original production plan in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and new facilities in development in Alberta, Ontario, and a Pennsylvania plant that opens this fall.
A private company, Nexii is valued at $620 million and raised more than $66 million through its first four rounds of funding, according to company statements. Funding was raised through a private placement with Fort Capital Partners acting as lead agent.
