There has been a lot of activity today on vacant land near the city centre of Edmonton. Public and private sector officials, citizens and press gathered in a make-shift tent to witness the groundbreaking of the Boyle Renaissance project. The crowd included renowned guests like the Mayor of Edmonton Stephen Mandel, TV personality Mike Holmes and officials at the Métis Capital Housing Corporation.

The groundbreaking was for a 90-unit residential project that will provide senior-friendly and barrier-free housing for Métis seniors and the disabled. The project is being spearheaded by Mike Holmes’ team, The Holmes Group, and his partners, and will result in an excellent facility that combines the highest quality of design, construction, energy sustainability and innovation.

Two partners joining Mike at the event were Enmax and Cisco Canada. Enmax Energy will provide the necessary infrastructure for district energy and combined heat and power, giving the building an advanced heating and power system that will use cleaner burning natural gas and meet the highest standards of building energy efficiency.

We at Cisco Canada will provide the network infrastructure that will form the “backbone” of the facility. The building will demonstrate the latest capabilities in systems convergence and provide for an intelligent, and connected, future-enabled environment. Over the top of this centralized IP infrastructure, the Boyle Renaissance will include Cisco’s Smart + Connected Communities (S+CC) Control4 Connected Home solution to deliver user friendly capabilities for the future residents of the building.

In the tent that has been put together for the groundbreaking ceremony, we are demonstrating the possibilities and capabilities of the Connected Home solution. The ability to completely control the home and advanced home applications from a single touch pad interface including turning off lights, lowering blinds adjusting room temperatures and changing channels on the TV– was proudly demonstrated by one of the Métis members.

The technology that will be implemented in the Boyle Renaissance project will provide cutting-edge and user-friendly features and functionalities that will enhance the quality of living for the project’s residents; and will make moving around a lot more effortless.

The success of this highly anticipated project (mind you, the first shovel only went into the ground today) is expected to become the model for future construction within the Métis portfolio and the City of Edmonton. I trust it will also spill over in the rest of Alberta and Canada at large.

We are all hopeful that together, we are re-calibrating the standards for 21st Century building development. Cisco Canada and The Holmes Group will continue to partner to push the envelope and move the ancient-old design and construction industry onto new, greener pastures with the latest and greatest innovation in design, construction and technology.

For more on today’s groundbreaking, please read the press release.