Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/147234
courtesy Canadian Tire Real Estate Ltd. Canadian Tire – Chrysler Building by Robin Brunet ver since bringing its nationwide brand upgrade initiative to Vancouver in 2005, Canadian Tire Corporation has been faced with special challenges. Its existing stores in the city were roughly half the size of other Canadian Tires in suburbia. The venerable retailer was determined to reinvigorate its image by constructing new, large facilities; however, this seemed impossible in an urban environment where real estate is at a premium. By partnering with Kasian Architecture Interior Design and Planning Ltd., Canadian Tire was able to pioneer what Ken Silver, the company's senior VP of corporate strategy and real estate, calls, "Large format multi-level retail contained in a small urban site." The first example of this was the striking Canadian Tire complex on Cambie and 7th Avenue in Vancouver, which features below-grade loading and rooftop parking. When the time came to develop a new store on SW Marine Drive in 2009, the company was faced with a City Hall and citizenry committed to preserving E 92/ the facade of a defunct warehouse and the front lawn on the proposed site. The facade belonged to the Chrysler Building, a large one-storey complex set far back from SW Marine Drive near the Fraser River and created by William R. Souter and Associates and associate architects McCarter Nairne & Partners of Vancouver. Designed in a late Art Moderne/ International style of modernism from 1955 to 1956, the facility was the parts warehouse and regional offices for Chrysler Corporation of Canada. As part of its development process with Canadian Tire, City Hall gave the brick front wall of the facility heritage designation and mandated that it be incorporated into the new retail design. "The lawn was also considered an invaluable example of how warehouses were laid out in the 1950s," says Silver. "Certainly, nobody would see its likes again anywhere in Vancouver." This posed a series of logistics problems which the Kasian team addressed systematically. "There was another consideration, and it was a major one," says Michael McDonald, Kasian principal. "Not only would the complex follow the large format multilevel retail template, it would contain multiple, high-profile retail tenants, including a 30,000-square-foot Best Buy, a Mark's Work Warehouse and restaurants. Therefore, how could we design it so that people on SW Marine would instantly recognize Canadian Tire without mitigating the impact of the other retailers?" The Chrysler warehouse was soon demolished save for the facade. Kasian decided that a two-level parking structure would be located in the middle of the new facility, and that Ontario Street would be augmented with bike route amenities and be accessible to a new public plaza designed to help "humanize" the complex. Canadian Tire's mandate is to create new sustainable buildings, so Kasian developed the complex to achieve a 45 per cent energy use reduction above the national energy code via efficient windows and skylights; its design also included thermally reflective roofing, rainwater management components and recycled materials, contributing Location 26 Southwest Marine Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Owner/Developer Canadian Tire Real Estate Ltd. Project Manager MHPM Project Managers Inc. Architect Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership Associate Architect Kasian Architecture Interior Design and Planning Ltd. Heritage Architect Robert Lemon Architecture Inc. General Contractor Ventana Construction Corporation Structural Consultant Weiler Smith Bowers Mechanical Consultant Inviro Engineered Systems Ltd. Electrical Consultant Hammerschlag + Joffe Inc. Landscape architects DMG Landscape Architects Total area 520,841 square feet Total Cost Undisclosed Canadian Tire – Chrysler Building august 2013 PMG Landscape Arch.indd 1 p92-96Can Tire_Parkland Health.indd 92 to the goal of obtaining a LEED Gold designation. After Kasian secured the development permits, Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership (MCMP) was retained to provide the working drawings and put the project to tender. "We were also required to delete some of the mezzanine content and we later helped with the internal fit-out," says MCMP partner Bill Reid. Reid credits DMG Landscape Architects for creating the plaza and other pedestrian-friendly amenities without spoiling the "vast appearance of the front lawn." Silver says although pre-load was a major construction consideration and the brick facade had to be braced, the actual construction process was uneventful: "All the necessary seismic elements were contained in the new structure and Ventana Construction did a great job completing work on time and budget." n 13-06-12 4:43 PM 13-07-12 2:09 PM