Construction of Broadway Tech Centre has reached completion. The business campus provides a one of a kind working environment for employees, and a park-like atmosphere for local residents. Sharp & Diamond is pleased to have worked closely with Bentall Kennedy and B+H on this precedential Vancouver project.
Sharp & Diamond has been involved with the development of Broadway Tech Centre since the project’s inception over 15 years ago. The award-winning office complex, owned by British Columbia Investment Management and developed by Bentall Kennedy, spans 17 acres in the Broadway and Renfrew neighbourhood of Vancouver. Centered around 7 new buildings, Broadway Tech Centre takes the form of a campus and stands as the neighbourhood’s first Class A office complex, a development with high-quality standard finishes, state of the art systems, exceptional accessibility, and a competitive market presence.
Broadway Tech Centre’s design focuses on three central principles: amenity, accessibility, and sustainability.
Abundant seating spaces and quiet park areas alternate and connect in interesting ways throughout the site, promoting personal exploration and encouraging outdoor enjoyment. Sometimes in landscape design, a site can feel large on paper but constricted when realized; this often represents a failure in design. The success of Broadway Tech Centre is that it achieves a spacious yet highly personal feel. The various amenity nodes succeed in creating pathways of exploration, relaxation, and recreation for employees and neighbourhood residents – small seating areas open up into impressive plazas; pathways bend to reveal expansive activity fields.
Throughout the campus, water is used as a defining element, connecting the spaces between buildings and echoing the flow of people. Water features such as streams and waterfalls serve to conceptually represent the streams and falls of British Columbia, attenuate outside traffic noise, and accentuate the steeply sloping site. Large scale custom fountains located in multiple plazas add a high level of visual interest, and are easily visible from inside the office buildings.
Creating exceptional vehicular, transit, cycling, and pedestrian access was key to promoting Broadway Tech Centre’s sustainability values. Notable transit options include the 99 B-Line along Broadway to the north and Renfrew Skytrain Station adjacent the southeast corner. The Central Valley Greenway – connecting New Westminster, Burnaby, and Downtown Vancouver – borders the south face. Employees are encouraged to adopt healthy and sustainable transit choices. The addition of Broadway Tech Centre’s own east-west roadway, Virtual Way, ties the campus together and provides emergency vehicle access, as well as quiet vehicular access to underground parking garages. Through its adoption of high-level pavers and detailed landscaping, Virtual Way promotes pedestrian usage, which filters and slows vehicle traffic on site.
The green roofs at Broadway Tech Centre, installed when green roofs were first being introduced to large-scale developments in cities, won 2009’s Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Award of Excellence for ‘Best Commercial Intensive Rooftop Garden’. The roofs feature native and hardy trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses. A thin, durable membrane prevents leakage, while the intensive planting shields the structure from the sun, minimizing temperature fluctuations and increasing the lifespan of the roof.
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 for a Regional Award of Excellence. The project was also a winner of the 2002 National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, (NAIOP), Comprehensive Development Award.
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 for a Regional Award of Excellence. The project was also a winner of the 2002 National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, (NAIOP), Comprehensive Development Award.
After 15 years, construction of Broadway Tech Centre has reached completion. The business campus provides a one of a kind working environment for employees, and park-like atmosphere for local residents. Sharp & Diamond is pleased to have worked so closely with Bentall Kennedy and Bunting Coady (B+H) on this precedential Vancouver project.
