Construction officially broke ground today on 2925 Virtual Way at Broadway Tech Centre, an integrated office and warehouse development in Vancouver. Completion of the 113,000 sq/ft four-storey office building is scheduled for spring 2008. Total cost of the project is approximately $37 million.

"With this next phase of development at Broadway Tech Centre, we are responding to the rising demand for office space in the Vancouver market in a long-term, sustainable way," said Chuck Swanson, vice president, real estate, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC). "Since the project began in 2000, we have transformed 17 acres of under-utilized and functionally obsolete warehouse space into a world-class business campus and distribution centre."

2925 Virtual Way is the campus’ third new office building, which is being built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver specifications. The LEED building rating is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. The buildings feature efficient water and energy conservation systems, and are designed to meet a high standard of indoor environmental quality.

When fully developed, Broadway Tech Centre will have eight buildings with 900,000 sq/ft of office and 150,000 sq/ft of production/distribution space. In addition to significant landscaped areas and gardens, the campus includes an on-site café, outdoor sports courts for basketball and volleyball and a full-service fitness facility. There is ample secured underground parking, and the campus is located immediately adjacent to the Central Valley Greenway (bikeway connecting New Westminster to Vancouver), the Renfrew Street Skytrain Station and the Broadway B-line transit stop.

"With its positive relationship to the surrounding community and transit systems, Broadway Tech Centre is a great example of leading edge sustainable design," says Teresa Coady of Bunting Coady Architects, the project’s lead architect. "In addition to contributing much needed additional office space, this project compliments the City of Vancouver’s focus on sustainability and will help raise the market standard for sustainable building design in Canada."

Broadway Tech Centre has been recognized by the Urban Development Institute (UDI) for excellence in Urban Development/Office Development and by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. The project also won the 2002 National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) Comprehensive Development Award.

Bunting Coady Architects is an innovative, full service, architectural practice based in Vancouver, British Columbia. With a reputation for creating high performance buildings and sustainable architecture, the company’s avowed design philosophy is to create places and spaces in which people can live and work successfully. Ranked the 7th largest Architectural Firm in BC by Business in Vancouver, Bunting Coady Architects has won over 50 Awards for design quality and building performance since the company was established in 1994. Bunting Coady Architects is the only practice to have won the BOMA Earth Award four times and has more square footage of LEED Gold certified projects than any other architectural firm in Canada.