The final aluminum piece was placed on the Foster and Partners designed roof, marking the structural completion of the project which began in May 2009.The roof will sit above a new roof garden and Canary Wharf Group’s four storey, 115,000 sq ft retail and leisure development including shops, restaurants, bars and a cinema. The roof garden and first phase of the retail and leisure space will open in May 2015, three years before trains run through the station.
Work began on the new station in May 2009 by creating a 250m long and 30m wide watertight dam in the waters of North Dock, using an innovative ‘silent’ piling method. The station box was then built ‘top down,’ 28 meters below the water surface to create the ticket hall and platform levels. Canary Wharf is the most progressed of Crossrail’s 10 new stations. Eight 40 meter-long escalators, four lifts, flooring, wall cladding and space for station services are all in place in the ticket hall level. Crossrail’s construction remains on time and within budget. Its tunneling program is over 80% complete. When Crossrail opens in 2018, it will increase London’s rail-based transport network capacity by 10% and cut journey times across the city, bringing an extra 1.5m people within 45 minutes of central London.