70 BCBusiness october 2015
through, f loor-by-f loor, and scraping
the space back to bare concrete. They
tore out T-bar ceilings and cut four-inch
trenches in the 'oor to run all new ser-
vices, and they installed the same vari-
able refrigerant 'ow air exchange and
conditioning system as in the
MNP Tower,
as well as the same style of indirect (often
LED) lighting. With new double-paned
windows and the original 1.5-foot, mas-
sive walls, Slotman says the building
actually performs remarkably well from
an ener¤y and eficiency standpoint.
"You have high-tech, state-of-the-art inte-
riors in this beautiful heritage building."
And you're a block from SkyTrain and
the SeaBus and at a central connecting
point for every bus route in the city.
Unlike
CBRE's vertical move, HCMA
associate Paul Fast says it was "an abso-
lute deal breaker" for the ‡rm to be on
one f loor—which, given its size, was
accomplished nicely in the building's
7,500-square-foot 'oorplate. And the
space is, as you'd expect of an architec-
ture o ce, exquisitely tasteful and per-
fectly e cient.
I
n a year of such new-building
splash, there remains a concern
that, when the music stops, a lot
of space will be standing empty.
Colliers shows that Vancouver's
vacancy rate has already crept up to 10
per cent (still the envy of Calgary, which
Colliers predicts will be facing a vacancy
