In 2000, Ivanhoe Cambridge and OMERS, owners of one of Canada’s highest performing shopping centres, found themselves with a pressing need to expand the centre to accommodate a growing cast of retails. However, the 1995 rezoning approval for 125,000 sq.ft. of new second floor expansion that was in place was unworkable as it was overburdened by City extractions.

The Ivanhoe Cambridge team began to explore expansion options, but realized shortly that a new form of pioneering development might present a much bigger opportunity. This was the start of the First large scale de-malling of a successful enclosed shopping centre.

In 2004, Ivanhoe Cambridge began discussions with the city of Vancouver to amend their Official Community Plan. The amended plan called for an expansion of the shopping centre and the introduction of significant residential density.

Working with the City of Vancouver on the concept development presented a challenge in and of itself. Planners in the city were inexperienced in retail development and needed to be walked through the principles of a successful regional retail project. Ensuring that the plan was functional was critical to ensuring that the end project would be well received by the retail community.

Similarly, the decidedly anti development community needed to see the benefit of redeveloping Oakridge from a “sea of parking” into a “truly useful hear of the community”. Gordon led years of extensive public consultation, lobbying and media management during the Policy Statement and Rezoning processes, which at times had over 1,500 attendees at an event.

Due to the civic engagement, the 2007 Oakridge Policy Statement was unanimously approved by Council with no opposition. The Policy Statement set the context for the placement of the retail, office uses and residential towers (strata and rental) as well as the amenity programming and locations.

The 2012 rezoning capitalized on the change in council and the high level of public utilization of Canada Line. The result was that the residential density was increased, and the retail was rationalized to reflect the evolving retail landscape.

The project is currently under construction. While the ownership has changed, the original vision, the allocation and placement of uses, design are being executed well. Being part of this major redevelopment of one of Canada’s original malls into a sustainable, transit oriented mixed-use project was a major highlight for the Northstar Principles.

In 2009, Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN) became the first Nation in BC to enter into a treaty providing self governance status. TFN began working on their community vision, resulting in the creation of the TFN Neighbourhood Plan in 2011.

At the same time, Ivanhoe Cambridge had been searching for a site large enough to accommodate a “Mills” centre in BC’s Lower Mainland. In the land constrained market of the Lower Mainland, this exercise had proven to be very difficult.

Suddenly, with TFN’s successful treaty status an opportunity presented itself: create a site large enough for a Mills centre and leverage Ivanhoe Cambridge’s development acumen to bring the TFN Neighbourhood Plan to life.

In 2012 Ivanhoe Cambridge and Tsawwassen First Nation begin working on a plan that would appoint Ivanhoe Cambridge to act as master developer for the Tsawwassen Mills shopping centre and the associated road network and land servicing for the remaining commercial, residential and industrial lands.

Ivanhoe Cambridge led the process of creating master servicing agreements for the required infrastructure and cost sharing agreements with other commercial developers. Ivanhoe Cambridge led the negotiations with government agencies such as BC Hydro, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Environment to ensure that the community received the required infrastructure investments.

Ultimately, Ivanhoe Cambridge managed the construction of the roads and servicing of the commercial lands in addition to the construction of Tsawwassen Mills.

In 2016, Ivanhoe Cambridge opened Tsawwassen Mills to the public. In the first week nearly 300,000 people were welcomed to the newly created commercial project and surrounding infrastructure.

With the opening of the Canada Line and the 2010 Olympics, car utilization at Scotia Tower declined significantly. At the same time, demand for new office space was growing, which combined would move the core of the office district to the east, away from the traditional location on Burrard St.

With the demand identified, the challenge of how to capture it needed to be solved creatively. The owner’s lands were fully built out with the Scotia Tower, the Vancouver Centre Mall and the associated parkade occupying the downtown land.

The solution was a complex infill office building, developed to be fully integrated into the existing assets, while simultaneously keeping all existing tenants fully operational. The challenge was complicated, but the reward was a project that not only captured new office demand but improved the value of the existing operational assets.

All work for the project was completed while the existing Scotia Tower and Vancouver Centre Mall remained occupied. This required staging of work, including an unusual structural design involving the installation of two special piles to allow the existing loading dock to remain operational during excavation and construction of the new basement structure below it. The piles also serve as permanent columns supporting tower superstructure loads.

Targeting an entirely new level of building performance, never before seen in the Vancouver market, Vancouver Centre II was able to achieve LEED Platinum, WELL Gold Certification and Wired Certification.

The project creates a seamless integration between the new VCII and existing Scotia Tower and Vancouver Centre Mall with a shared entrance atrium and canopy that wraps around the corner from Georgia to Seymour streets. The addition of significant new amenity spaces and parking created additional value to the complex as a whole. The project was completed without the need to terminate leases or lose rent on the existing assets during construction.

Lastly, the Vancouver Centre II was designed as a smart building. As such, these systems allow for more efficient operation by the operators, tenant and office works. Everything from mechanical systems, security, car charging, parking payment, elevator calling, amenity room booking, office notifications etc. can be managed via a computer or the Vancouver Centre App.

As a result, VCII won the “Most Intelligent Building Projects: Office Building” at the 2023 Digie Awards.