Alberta Infrastructure

Calgary Courts Centre is a major courthouse complex designed to accommodate both the Court of Queen’s Bench and Provincial Court. The complex consists of a 24-storey tower and a 20-storey tower, totalling 1 million ft2 in downtown Calgary. 

The two towers are connected by a 26-storey glass atrium with catwalk bridges. The complex hosts 73 courtrooms, judicial chambers, and facilities for security, government, library and external agencies staff.

Rising approximately 125 metres, the structure was designed to be one of Calgary’s premier office buildings. The vertical transportation system includes 25 elevators and 8 escalators. From the public’s perspective, there are a total of 12 gearless traction elevators split into two banks of six elevators, in a low rise and high rise configuration. In addition to the Atrium elevators, the public uses eight atrium escalators to facilitate movement through the first five building levels which have high traffic flows.

Judiciary transportation
For the judiciary, a total of four gearless traction elevators (two per tower) serve all building levels (except the mechanical floor), including sub-basement levels. Given the secure nature of these units, provisions were incorporated to accommodate CCTV cameras, security card readers and remote monitoring and control.

Prisoner transportation
For prisoner movement, six elevators are provided, two of which are large capacity (4300 kg), special purpose units, sized to accommodate up to 15 prisoners plus associated guards. These oversized units serve between the sally-port and holding cell level.

For the prisoner elevators, special features included “Touch Screen” operation allowing the elevators to be sent to various floors from a remote location, without involvement from the guard.

General elevator transportation
For material handling functions, both towers are provided with a single 2270 kg capacity, gearless traction, “hospital” style elevator. A single staff parking shuttle is also provided to access the secure parking on the two lowest sub-grade levels.