Construction begins on $1.3 billion Brookfield Place Calgary development Rendering of the Brookfield Place Calgary downtown office development. BY MARIO TONEGUZZI, CALGARY HERALD CALGARY - Construction began Wednesday on the Brookfield Place Calgary east tower, which will be Western Canada’s tallest building on completion. The 1.4-million-square-foot office tower is the first phase of development on the site of the old Herald building in the downtown core. The east tower will be 56 storeys or 247 metres in height and Cenovus Energy will be anchoring the development with a one-million-square-foot commitment. Brookfield Place Calgary is a $1.3 billion, full-block development site, bounded by 1st and 2nd Streets S.W. and 6th and 7th Avenues S.W. Completion of the east tower is expected in the latter half of 2017. It is expected that Cenovus will occupy its one million square feet by the first quarter of 2018. It is described as the largest private sector construction project in the city’s history. “Several years ago we identified this block as the best-located parcel of underdeveloped land in the city, and today we begin construction on what will be the tallest structure in Western Canada,” said Jan Sucharda, president and chief executive of Brookfield Office Properties’ Canadian Commercial Operations. Brookfield purchased the eastern part of the block in 2007 and then the western block in early 2012. “The opportunity to control an entire city block in the heart of downtown Calgary seemed too good to be true,” said Sucharda. Brookfield also announced Wednesday that the pavilion space adjacent to the east tower will be named ‘The James K. Gray Gallery’ after “the influential and revered member of Western Canada’s oil and natural gas exploration business.” Gray said the tower is going to make a “meaningful and positive” contribution to the city’s skyline and culture. He said the first office tower is going to be Brookfield’s “centrepiece property in Calgary.” Development plans for the site also call for an additional office tower totaling approximately one million square feet, a 60-foot-high transparent glass pavilion, restaurants, retail shops and amenities at street level, and underground parking accommodating 1,100 parking stalls. A half-acre lit public plaza will traverse the site and will feature restaurants and cafés, public art displays, cultural activities and programmed activity provided by Brookfield’s Arts & Events program. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the Brookfield project will “change our skyline forever” and it’s a great statement of confidence in the city and its future. He called Calgary’s downtown one of the most successful downtown cores in the world. Denise Froese, vice-president of administrative services for Cenovus, said the new tower is a world-class project and another signature building for Brookfield, for Cenovus and for the city. The company, which occupies space in the newly-completed Bow tower just a few blocks away, will move staff from other buildings into the new Brookfield tower, thereby consolidating staff in two primary locations. Partners on the project are architects Fender Katsalidis Arney and Dialog, and construction manager Ellis Don. The entire Brookfield Place Calgary project is expected to create 1,300 construction jobs and 7.5 million construction man-hours in Calgary, said Brookfield. It said the development is expected to achieve the LEED Gold standard for Core & Shell development. Commuters will have direct access to the plus-15 skywalk system and the Calgary LRT on 7th Avenue. The property will house a bicycle parking facility accessible by dedicated bike ramps separate from vehicular traffic and electric car plug-in recharge stations. In Calgary, Brookfield has eight properties totaling 6.8 million square feet. Landmark assets include the Bankers Hall and Suncor Energy Centre complexes. Brookfield’s Calgary portfolio is 99.7 per cent leased with an average lease term of 11.2 years.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 17:13:42 +0000
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