[Dartmouth] Park Place V | 20 m | 5 fl | Completed

[sdm]

The Armour Group is building a 5 story 125,000 Sqft Commercial office building in the City of Lakes Business Park.

Project is being registered with Green Building Council to achieve LEED certification. This will make it the largest multi tenant Commercial office building in the region to be built to LEED standards.

Currently under construction.

Trying to get renderings from the company, along with new details.

[sdm]

Taking green to the office, and the bank
Armour Group’s Park Place V project designed to meet growing demand for commercial space that meets stringent new environmmental standards
By STEVE PROCTOR Business Editor
Sun. Jan 13 - 5:44 AM



WHEN Ben McCrea built Historic Properties on the Halifax waterfront in the mid-1970s, he was the first developer in Atlantic Canada to use sea water for heating and cooling purposes. It was a cutting-edge innovation that helped earn the downtown development accolades for its environmental sensitivity.

Thirty-four years later the chairman of Armour Group says he hopes his new $21-million "green" office complex in Dartmouth will enjoy some of the environmental cachet of his earlier venture.

"We have always been at the forefront of innovation in development in the city, and this development shows we are working to maintain that position," he said in a recent interview. "Our Park Place V project will meet some of the highest environment standards in the country."

When it is completed in the fall, the five-storey 25,000 square foot building in the City of Lakes Business Park will be the province’s first office building certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, or LEED. It will use 40 per cent less energy and consume 40 per cent less water than existing conventional businesses.

The certification, offered through the Canadian Green Building Council, demands developers meet stringent standards in key environmental areas that include energy efficiency, material selection and indoor environmental quality.

To date just 90 buildings in Canada have received the certification. In Nova Scotia the only certified building is the Nova Scotia Chief and Petty Officers facility at CFB Halifax. But architect Tony Cook of Fowler Bauld and Mitchell said as many as 30 other projects, like the new Nova Scotia Community College Dartmouth campus, may be awaiting official designation.

"The government has taken a bit of a leadership role with this, so a lot of schools have been built to LEED standards," he said. "I think now any project for the departments of Education, Public Works or Transportation need to be LEED compliant. It’s only recently that the private sector is getting on board."

For McCrea, there’s no doubt environmentally sustainable construction is the way of the future.

"Canadians consume three times more energy per capita than the global average," he said. "We’re all going to have to cut down on energy use and reduce our environmental footprint."

But the thrust is more than just getting warm and fuzzy about the environment. Customers are demanding more environmental sustainability. When Nova Scotia Power announced last fall it was looking for new office space, its call for proposals indicated it would look favourably on LEED certified office space. .

"It’s not an absolute requirement, but we anticipate there may eventually be some provincial or federal standards in the future and we want to give developers a signal of the way we’d like to go," said Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman Margaret Murphy.

Similarly, environmental consultant Jacques Whitford of Dartmouth has said LEED certified properties will get the first look when it expands.

Making the changes in the development world is a daunting task that is going to require architects to think differently and subcontractors to work differently, said McCrea.

Even though the Dartmouth project is just beginning to take shape, he said there have been many lessons learned in the planning and design stages that will make it easier for a second and third project.

"It’s not about adding expensive stuff to the building just because you are thinking green; it’s about actually doing things that save money," he said. "We initially thought it would look nice with solar panels on the roof, but from a cost savings point of view, it didn’t make much sense. Commercial buildings don’t use much domestic hot water."

Although the cost of the environmental technology used in the "guts" of a green building is dropping as more people embrace the concept, construction costs for green buildings are higher than for those of their traditional counterparts. McCrea estimates the Park Place V effort will be about seven per cent more expensive to build.

Increased construction costs will translate into a five per cent rental premium, but McCrea insists the payoff for tenants will come in the form of lower utility bills, a healthier workplace for employees, reduced impact on the environment and community goodwill.

Medavie Blue Cross is willing to pay the premium. It will take over half the Armour building in early 2009 when it moves 267 people from its Spectacle Lake Drive building and a smaller location on Brownlow Avenue.

"We want to offer our employees a healthy work environment that will accommodate all employees under one roof and accommodate expansion if future needs arise," Ruth Rappini, Medavie’s vice-president of organizational development, said in a recent release.

While green-certified office buildings are becoming more common, John Lindsay Jr., president of East Port Properties Ltd., says his firm may be the first in the country to get a rental warehouse certified.

"People haven’t been able to get the formula to work for warehouses," he said. "The difficulty has been with energy efficiency, but it is a hurdle we think we’ve overcome."

He said construction of the company’s new 63,000 square-foot warehouse at 122 Dorey Ave. in Dartmouth includes in-floor heating and high levels of insulation.

On the mechanical side, a high-efficiency fluorescent lighting system uses sensors and dimmer switches to feed light to the building as natural lighting fades.

Work on the facility is just wrapping up. Construction costs were 20 per cent above those of a traditional warehouse project, but he said the savings will be recouped by tenants in lower operational costs. He said the company plans to use LEED standards in the next phase of the development but will wait until it sees how the market reacts to the existing space.

LEED certification will offer developers like Armour and East Port a competitive edge for at least the short term, says architect Cook, but he believes the green standards will quickly become the industry norm.

"In a few years there won’t even be a separate process for LEED certification. It will all be part of the design process."

Both Lindsay and McCrea agree the standards will be mainstream fare within a few years but believe the government could be doing more to drive it forward.

"We bid (to offer space) on a federal contract, but despite repeated commitment to the environment, the government hasn’t given Public Works any leeway to pay a little more for a green property," Lindsay said.

"As a result the contact went to an older and less efficient space because of something less than a 10 per cent difference."

McCrea, who has had the same experience, said the feds should look at supporting green buildings as part of their social responsibility.

Some big cities, like Boston and New York City, require new publicly funded projects to meet the equivalent of LEED certification.

Boston is going further, making the same requirement of new privately owned new buildings of at least 50,000 square feet. New York state also promotes green construction through special tax credits.

[phrenic]

Small render from an article in The Burnside news:

[sdm]

Originally Posted by phrenic

Small render from an article in The Burnside news:

I see there are a few renderings on armour groups site, i would post them but have no idea how.

[Jonovision]

It's a rather bland and boring building if you ask me.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by sdm

I see there are a few renderings on armour groups site, i would post them but have no idea how.

Most images displayed on websites have URLs. You can usually get the URL by right-clicking on the image (Windows) or control-clicking (Mac) and choosing "Copy Image Address/URL" or something similar.

To post the image in SSP you need to add the image URL that you copied between two image tags, like so:

[img]image url goes here, exactly as copied[/img]

You also need to give some kind of reference with the image if you did not create it yourself.

[sdm]

saw this in the burnside news

The Burnside News March 6/2008

Park Place V marks start of Armour Group’s switch to LEED construction

KEN PARTRIDGE
The Burnside News

Park Place V, the latest installment in the Armour Group’s Park Place business campus in the City of Lakes area of Burnside, marks a significant change in how the company will do business in the future.

Not only is Park Place V slated to become the first and largest multi-tenant LEED (Leadership in Environmental Engineering and design) certified building in the region, it also establishes the blueprint for all future Armour group projects. According to the Armour Group’s Stuart McCrea, all the company’s future buildings will be at least LEED certified.

“It’s the way of the future,” McCrea says. “Eventually all buildings will be done this way, in the same way businesses moved to ISO certification several years ago.”

McCrea says having a third party certify the building’s LEED status – in this case the Green Building Council of Canada – adds a high degree of legitimacy to the project.

“It’s like having the construction equivalent of an EnerStar sticker on your building,” McCrea says. “It also sort of ‘future proofs’ our development. Because the building is so efficient, it immediately delivers lower operating costs to us and our tenants, thereby protecting us somewhat from future cost increases.”

Park Place V will deliver a 40 per cent reduction in energy needs compared to the National Energy Code model. There’s also a 40 per cent reduction in water usage, thanks to dual flush toilets, ultra low flow urinals, showerheads and faucets. The pulse-fired natural gas boilers are extremely efficient, further reducing ongoing costs for the finished project.

Other environmentally-friendly aspects of the project include: minimal site disturbance with excavated rock crushed and reused on site; landscaping makes use of native, drought resistant vegetation so no potable water is used to maintain it; changing rooms and showers for tenants that choose alternative transportation options for their commute; most construction and design materials were produced or sourced locally to reduce transportation costs; only low VOC emitting materials are used to help improve indoor air quality; the building utilizes 20 per cent recycled materials (in fact, flyash – a waste byproduct of coal-powered generating – is used to strengthen the concrete); the building has full humidification control and constantly monitors the air for CO2 build up so it can be vented to the outside as needed.

Even the tenants will have to get in on the act, with each lease stipulating tenants must recycle a certain percentage of their waste based on their square footage.

The five storey, precast building uses a unique design to achieve the creation of 12 corner offices on each of the 24,500 square foot floor plates. Lots of low E argon windows are used to maximize the penetration of natural light throughout the building.

Blue Cross Medavie has already signed up as the development’s anchor tenant, taking two and a half floors to consolidate its existing operations in a single location. McCrea says he is currently negotiating with several other interested parties for the remaining space.

Park Place V is scheduled for completion in January 2009.

For more information on Park Place V, visit the project online at www.pp5.ca

[xxFamilyGuyxx]

Since no one posted them, here are the renderings for this project:



From www.armourgroup.com

[worldlyhaligonian]

Imagine if this was 10+ floors.

[Dmajackson]

Has anyon been in this area lately?

According to their website this building is supposed to be finished in Winter 2009.

[Jonovision]

I drove by the site last night. The crane is gone and most of the glass is up. They still have a few panels left on the corners and they have to put the finishings over the glass.

[gm_scott]

ugh. I saw this last week and I'm not too impressed. It reminds me of a building built in the 90's

[Wishblade]

Originally Posted by gm_scott

ugh. I saw this last week and I'm not too impressed. It reminds me of a building built in the 90's

Well, I find it to be a pretty decent building. It could have been a lot worse, thats for sure.

[gm_scott]

Originally Posted by Wishblade

Well, I find it to be a pretty decent building. It could have been a lot worse, thats for sure.

Hmm, and the fact that it's LEED makes it better. I think its just the brick that kills me.

[Dmajackson]

The exterior is pretty much done now. Only one corner left to do. Unfortunately i couldn't snap a piucture because of the accident in front of me.

[sdm]

Meet the eco-office

By Jillian Schettler Special Features Writer
Wed. Nov 12 - 4:46 AM

Canada is a nation famous for its hockey, maple syrup, and, unfortunately, cold weather. As a result, Natural Resources Canada calculates that Canadians spend about 90 per cent of their time in buildings—eight to 12 of those hours are spent in the workplace.

That being said, how green is your workplace?

Armour Group is the first private developer to actively advance greener commercial office buildings in Halifax. And the group’s latest project, the Park Place Corporate Campus, aims to encourage environmental consciousness within the province’s corporate market.

Located in the City of Lakes Business Park, Park Place V is part of a larger corporate campus which consists of six buildings, one hotel and five office buildings. The campus build began in 1991 and is the first and largest multi-tenant LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified office building within Atlantic Canada.

"The Campus has created that ‘sense of place’ in the community that we, as an organization, strive to achieve," offers Stuart McCrea, vice-president of Halifax’s Armour Group. "Its nearby location to parks, recreation trails, lakes and nearby bedroom communities makes it an ideal location for organizations not required to be in the Central Business District."

McCrea suggests that the campus—which employs some 18,000 individuals in varying sectors—contributes significantly to the economic prosperity of not only Halifax, but Nova Scotia as well.

According to the group’s website, productivity can increase (as little as three per cent to as high as 16 per cent) due to "greener" building elements.

The LEED rating system, adopted by outfits such as Armour Group, promotes green design which, in turn, reduces operating costs through efficiencies and enhances building marketability.

The five key areas to consider when building LEED are: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design processes.

Specifically, the Park Place campus includes the following greener, LEED approved, amenities: natural-gas-fired pulse boilers (which are approximately 90 per cent efficient), energy efficient lighting fixtures utilizing occupancy sensors, energy efficient transformers, an advanced Building Automated System (BAS) which constantly monitors the amount of fresh air being provided and adjusts accordingly, carbon dioxide monitoring, waterless urinals, and ultra low- flow dual-flush toilets—to name a few.

Scheduled for completion in January 2009, Park Place is projected to be 40 per cent more efficient then the Model National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings (MNECB) and will consume 43 per cent less water then conventional practices.

"Being on the leading edge of building LEED has been a steep learning curve involving all aspects of our business, i.e. development, construction, and property management," says the Armour Group VP.

"It became apparent that LEED was a hand-and-glove fit," continues McCrea. "As the Armour Group looks towards the future, it will consider all developments to be under the LEED program."

Since buildings constructed to the LEED standard are environmentally responsible and economically sustainable, Armour Group is confident that companies will adopt eco-friendly practices into the workplace.

"We believe organizations will see the value in leasing space in a building that protects the environment," says McCrea. "We further believe that, by leasing in our building, organizations will be able to convey the message of their commitment to environmental responsibility."

[Dmajackson]

^They had a nice picture of the building with this and other than a little bit of landscaping it looked complete and very nice

[sdm]

Originally Posted by Bedford_DJ

^They had a nice picture of the building with this and other than a little bit of landscaping it looked complete and very nice

Yeah picture looked good, for a suburban building. Was by there on friday and it appears the parking lot was being paved. It's nice to see someone at least willing to venture into LEED buildings.

[Dmajackson]

IMO Other than maybe Waterside Centre the Armour Group is defenitely making some nice buildings around town. Just have a look at their list on their website....The only one that I dont particulary like a lot is 5800 South....

[Dmajackson]

Drove by this today. The outside looks complete (with the exception of a couple of windows). The companies are probably in the process of moving in now (photos taken by me):