Stormwater Facilities

Creating networks to retain, clean up, and manage our stormwater.

Many of our projects are hard to define. Are they landscaping? Civil works? Or are they something that combines every skillset and every type of work that we do, all in one project? These storm facilities fall somewhere in that world. They are fun and challenging to build, as they combine so many scopes and the tasks are constantly changing. Deep storm infrastructure like box culverts and precast vault chambers. Mass excavation and detailed shaping. Planting, landscaping, and wetland establishment. Pumps, waterfalls, streams and everything else. Wilco thrives on finding ways to complete these mixed-bag projects in a compressed timeline, giving the client a facility that not only handles their engineering and stormwater requirements, but creates a natural space asset that markets their community and keeps the landscape and finished product as the focus.

View Our Stormwater Facilities Projects:
Alpine Storm Park
Deerfoot & Beddington Trail Improvements
Dawson’s Landing Storm Ponds

Sports & Recreation

Constructing opportunities for sports and wellness.

2024 has seen a huge increase in athletic facilities in the Calgary area, particularly in synthetic sports fields for soccer, football, rugby and more. Wilco completed the Airdrie field in summer 2024, and started a new one at Horseshoe High School in Langdon late in the season, to be turfed and ready first thing in the spring. It’s an exciting time in the sports community, with a big increase in accessibility and availability on the way. The Rocky Ridge Athletic Park will be a huge boost to Calgary’s northwest sports scene, with two new fields underway and moving quickly. Wilco has a long history of completing these sports facilities, and our project team brings that learned experience to the table to make these projects happen efficiently. Our team understands that every day on these sites is of the utmost importance in a short construction season, to ensure that the clubs and teams waiting to play have somewhere to go on opening day.

View Our Sports & Recreation Projects:
Airdrie Artificial Fields
Rocky Ridge Athletic

Civil & Earthworks

Building the infrastructure that makes our communities work.

Wilco often surprises clients with the scope of work we are capable of taking on. That’s one of the reasons we create this book, to show a sample of the variety of tasks we are doing every day. On any given day we’ve got crews installing big storm utilities, bulking out mass excavation, stripping topsoil with scrapers, or excavating a new river channel, all while other crews are building bridges, pouring concrete flatwork, paving pathways, sodding a sports field, planting 100 trees, or landscaping a set of showhomes. This diversity is definitely our strength, and we thrive on it. Our preferred approach is not that we must have a certain type of project to suit our needs as a company, but rather that we will suit the needs of whatever project the market has to offer at any given time.

View Our Civil & Earthworks Projects:
Vantage Rise Site Grading
Ogden 78^th Avenue Green Line LRT
YYC Airport West Runway
Drumheller River Crossing
North Drumheller Flood

Parks & Natural Areas

Creating ways for the public to explore and enjoy our park spaces.

Throughout our history working in the Calgary and mountain region, Wilco has been tackling projects to improve our park access and enjoyment. These have included trailheads and parking areas in the mountains, pathways through Fish Creek and our urban natural parks, carving trails and building footbridges in Big Hill Springs, using helicopters to move materials in remote locations, and anything we’re brave enough to take on. These projects can come with unique challenges: mountain weather extremes, remote locations, protection of unique plant and animal species, and always a heightened awareness of reducing the impact on the natural surroundings. Often these projects come with field adjustments required, needing some collaboration amongst the project team to work around sensitive areas, archaeological sites, and other surprises. Our team has built a reputation for being easy to work with, efficient and productive, and finding working solutions to overcome any construction challenge and provide the finished product our clients demand.

View Our Parks & Natural Areas Projects:
Highwood Pass
Fish Creek Park
Inglewood Bird Sanctuary

Landscape Development

Developing green spaces in every corner of the Calgary region.

Landscaping is always at the root of everything we do, and is usually a part of any of our projects in some capacity. We still seem to have the same ratio we’ve always had, of 50% civil / 50% landscape, depending on how you define it. That blend is a great thing for us, in that it allows us to use tools and teams across multiple scopes, using big earthmoving equipment on smaller landscape jobs when it fits, and using crews that have great landscape experience on civil jobs to do the finishing touches. Our project teams push hard to use the landscape work we do to market the sales and growth of our client’s communities, or to create public parks that exceed the expectations of the residents.

View Our Landscape Development Projects:
Waterford
Mahogany Central Green
Rockland Park
Wildflower Central Park
Springbank Hill
Vermilion Hill

Urban Spaces

Upgrading and renovating our urban public areas.

Wilco has a depth of experience working in downtown areas, or busy, complicated locations. Our recent success on the Downtown Flood Barrier through the Eau Claire and Riverwalk areas is a testament to our preparation, planning, and resourcefulness. Urban projects come with an increased demand around safety, as aged infrastructure below grade can often come with a few surprises. These projects come with tight spaces for working, limited storage and laydown areas, difficult traffic and pedestrian management, and almost always a user group that wants things back to normal as quickly as possible. Wilco’s project teams work hard to plan ahead and strategize on the things we can control, so that the things that can come as a surprise can be met with a calm and confident approach. Wilco has a project profile full of high quality work around hardscape surfaces, soil cells and tree trenches, streetscaping and infrastructure upgrades.

View Our Urban Spaces Projects:
Marda Loop Main Street
Stampede Crossing / 17^th Avenue
Humpy Hollow Park

Fencing & Structures

Building bridges, walls, boardwalks, docks; anything we do that’s unusual and unique.

2024 saw the start of the Harmony Bridge project, a two lane road concrete girder bridge that will proceed late this year and into 2025. This project involves deep drilled concrete pile foundations with massive concrete abutments, and we’re looking forward to seeing it open to traffic in the near future. Wilco’s projects often involve interesting structures: washroom buildings both custom built or precast, timber shelters and structures, and retaining walls of all kinds. The addition of our sheet piling unit gives us added flexibility and resourcefulness, using it for temporary shoring on riverbanks and deep utility installations as well as for permanent flood protection walls and foundations.

View Our Structures & Fencing Projects:
Sunnyside Flood Barrier
Hotchkiss Wetland Pier
Stewart Creek Retaining Walls
Royal Oak East Stairs

Heavy Equipment Training

Comprehensive training on multiple heavy machines like CAT 336 excavators, D4 dozers, 730 rock trucks, and more

Wilco knows that our people are our biggest asset and our greatest source of success. This is why we have a heavy equipment training program in-house, with a trainer dedicated to upgrading our skills. The training is primarily to upgrade our operator skills internally, to take a skidsteer operator and give them the basics on becoming an excavator operator, in a controlled and low-pressure environment. All training is completed at our facility away from the project site, to allow operators to take their time and develop skills and confidence without the pressures of production and efficiency. We’ve found that by giving our people the time and space to develop, they can head back to the jobsite with the confidence that they have the building blocks to continue to refine their skills. We also use our training facility to train and develop new hires, especially in the off-season. This is a great opportunity for candidates to test out our fleet of CAT equipment, get their feet wet on a machine that may be slightly different than they’re used to, and get to know a few people around Wilco before they make that leap to join a new company.