NOVEMBER 2019 BCBUSINESS 31 BCBUSINESS.CA
pied," Gillespie explains.
Vancouver House, whose
first phase completes this
fall, is "regarded today
as probably the most fol-
lowed and interesting
highrise residential building in the world,"
he says. "People in Vancouver don't realize
that their community has born something
that the whole world is looking at."
Gillespie, who has some 1,500 employ-
ees here and at his firm's seven additional
offices from Toronto to Shanghai, maintains
that he isn't like other local developers. He
doesn't belong to the Urban Development
Institute, the main industry lobby group. "I
don't think about what they think about,"
he says of his peers. "I'm really busy think-
ing about what I'm going to do. And for me,
I think our practice is this idea that it's my
vehicle for my own journey."
But it's more complicated than that.
Some take it for granted that they stand
on the shoulders of previous genera-
tions, Gillespie adds: "We enjoy going for
a walk on the seawall because somebody
made that happen." He judges a life well
lived by its positive contributions. "As long
as we maintain that as the goal, the over-
reaching thing that we're all trying to work
and strive together for, then it becomes
not about you," Gillespie says. "It becomes
about a greater team effort and a whole
bunch of collaborations with a whole
bunch of really incredible people that have
a shared set of values."
"I DON'T THINK HE JUST SEES DEVELOPMENT AS A
BUSINESS. I THINK HE SEES IT AS A CALLING, HE SEES IT
AS A MISSION, AND HE SEES HIS PROJECTS AS CITY-
BUILDING AND CITY-CHANGING PROJECTS"
–Larry Beasley, former co-director of planning, City of Vancouver
WALKING TOUR
Gillespie is making
his mark on
Vancouver's skyline
with buildings like
400 W. Georgia, now
under construc-
tion (left), and Telus
Garden (below)
