JULY/AUGUST 2017 BCBUSINESS 37
Vancouver property developers and the
local companies that work with them have
created a booming global export business.
Do they get enough support at home?
I
an Gillespie speaks quietly, and he
doesn't do small talk. As a Neil Young live
album jangles on the stereo, the slender
Westbank Projects Corp. founder sits in
a corner of his roomy downtown Van-
couver o ce, North Shore Mountains at
his back. Fine-boned, dressed in jeans
and a dark blazer, he looks more like someone
from the art world than a property developer.
"There does not go a week here where I do
not get a mayor of some Asian city coming to
my o ce, wanting to talk about what's going
on in Vancouver and how did we accomplish
this and how could that help me over there,"
Gillespie says.
Launched in 1992, luxury residential and
mixed-use specialist Westbank is known for
local landmarks such as the Woodward's
redevelopment, Telus Garden and the
Shangri-la Vancouver hotel. It's also the
force behind Vancouver House and Alberni
by Kengo Kuma, daring additions to the city
skyline due for completion in 2018 and 2020,
respectively. For those two towers, Gillespie is
working with leading architects Bjarke Ingels of
Denmark and Japan's Kengo Kuma.
Westbank, whose —inished and current
projects have a combined value of $25 bil-
lion, is a global player, too. With 12 o ces in
Canada, the U.S. and Asia, and 1,500 sta›
including those at its hotels, the company
counts properties in Toronto, Seattle and
Tokyo among its works in progress. "We're
bigger outside Vancouver than inside
Vancouver," says Gillespie, who regularly
holds art and design exhibits and lectures.
As he points out, Westbank is far from
alone. "I could literally give you 100 œrms
that are doing work internationally,"
Gillespie says. "And so it's thousands of
people. It's big business."
BUILDING
WORLD
THE
> > B Y N I C K R O C K E L < <
TOP: Westbank's Vancouver House is
slated for completion next year
COURTESY OF WESTBANK
