With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1181452
36 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER 2019 we don't have enough people interested in that side, especially people with investment possibility," he says. "I think it's kind of cou- rageous to say I have this interest in beauty and couturier culture." We're actually going to make a difference Gillespie has a tip for his fellow developers. "Everything needs to be looked at through the lens of climate change. If you're not looking through that lens, then you're a dinosaur." And if you work in downtown Vancou- ver, there's a good chance your office gets its heat from Creative Energy, which supplies 45 million square feet in some 210 build- ings. This utility, purchased by Westbank in 2014, is southern B.C.'s biggest consumer of natural gas; expanding to downtown south, Oakridge and Horseshoe Bay, it's also mov- ing into Toronto and the U.S. Atop its existing gas-fired steam plant near BC Place stadium, Creative Energy, Westbank, Bjarke Ingels Group and Van- couver's HCMA Architecture + Design have proposed an office building designed for creative economy tenants. This redevelop- ment would allow for major upgrades to the plant and construction of a new low-carbon facility, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25,000 tonnes a year. For the Telus Garden project, West- bank captured enough heat from the land- line switch centre on Seymour Street to power a million square feet of buildings. At Oakridge, eco-friendly technologies will include a geo-exchange field and waste heat recovery system, biofuels, electric boilers and sewer recapture. The average resident will produce 1.3 tonnes of greenhouse gas a year, versus 5.9 tonnes for the average urban dweller, Gillespie says. "We're actu- ally going to make a difference." Since they met, James Cheng remem- bers, Gillespie has always been commit- ted to sustainability and the environment. "The idea that he would get involved in the energy sources when it comes to greener, sustainable city-building, it's just indica- tive of a bigger-picture perspective," says former chief planner Toderian. A blunt instrument With the BC Housing Management Com- mission and other partners, Westbank is one of Vancouver's top builders of afford- able and social housing. But several people I talked to say Gillespie doesn't get much credit for that, partly because he's per- ceived as a luxury developer. Brent Toderian cites Gillespie's work to build affordable and social housing at Woodward's and elsewhere in the Downtown Eastside. "He will get passion- ately interested in a project around afford- ability that many other developers would never touch." Also overlooked is Gillespie's effort—still in its early stages—to boost Canada's supply of affordable middle-income rental hous- ing by working with institutional investors, Beasley observes. "Unless the develop- ment community steps up and really tries to help us find solutions, we will not find solutions," he says. "I honestly think he's leading the way on that." To help combat the affordability crisis by managing housing demand, Gillespie