Vancouver’s downtown building boom will create much-needed office space in the city. Mayor Gregor Robertson broke ground recently on The Exchange, a $200 million, 31-storey Credit Suisse office tower in the financial district. It is one of seven buildings currently under construction downtown.
Robertson believes the projects will help to end the city’s supply problem. Vancouver has one of the tightest markets in North America for office space with the vacancy rate for Class A office space standing at at 5.3 per cent.
In Montreal it is 8.7 per cent and in Edmonton it is 9.7 per cent. Cushman and Wakefield predict that the rate will rise to 7.7 per cent this year and 10.5 per cent in 2015.
The city has approved as much office space in the past four years as in the previous decade. Until recently, the city of Vancouver was projecting a shortage of office space by the year 2031 if land-use policies did not change.
New zoning laws enacted in 2009 helped to get the new construction projects started. The seven towers currently under construction will provide a total of 2.18 million square feet of new office space.
The Exchange will be joined with the Old Stock Exchange building built at 475 Howe Street. It will be the first LEED Platinum conversion of a heritage building in Canada. LEED Platinum is the highest designation for sustainable building design from the Canada Green Building Council.
The other six office towers currently being constructed are:
The new office space will not only create jobs in the city’s financial district, but the Exchange will be one of the most sustainable workplaces in Canada.
Previous Post
EU Directive to have Big Impact on Retail Industry
