Telus Garden | 135m, 88m | 46fl res, 22fl office | 928,000sqft | Completed

[navazan]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Another thread where the facts get buried by what ifs and what could've beens. Don't know why no developer just comes on here and lets these experts design the building for them.

a handicapped monkey can design better than most of the rectangle-obsessed planks that designed anything in Van in the last decade.

[navazan]

THAT being said, i think this project is better than a standard vancouver box, as it has slightly differentiated itself by having offset boxy...things... i "like" it compared to say the burrard gateway debacle.

[flight_from_kamakura]

very good amount of retail, sort of blows my mind how this will change the block. in a way, it's almost like pushing the downtown a block further to the east. yes, sir.

[EdinVan]

Originally Posted by navazan

a handicapped monkey can design better than most of the rectangle-obsessed planks that designed anything in Van in the last decade.

I just sprayed milk all over my keyboard

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by EdinVan

I just sprayed milk all over my keyboard

One handed typing?

[navazan]

Originally Posted by galeforcewinds

One handed typing?

[WBC]

I find it interesting that a company that sold the "boot" in Burnaby and than leased it back during the real estate lows of late 90s and early 00s is now building/buying real estate during one of the biggest run-ups in Vancouver's real estate history.

I also find it interesting that at the same time the same company is conducting surveys of their own employees to determine how many of them would want to work from home and is planning an aggressive "work from home" strategy.

Some savvy moves here...

[WarrenC12]

They are moving a lot of operations from Alberta here though, correct?

They are also making record profits and beating Shaw at their own game (TV). Give them some credit.

[SpikePhanta]

^^ Telus still won't reach Shaw on Internet.
Not to mention Shaw is coming into the mobile market.

I like Telus for two things, the fact that they are based in Vancouver and their marketing, other than that Shaw all the way.
Not to mention Telus has the worst Customer service

[BCPhil]

Telus is also gaining ground in the B2B sector isn't it? To me it seems like this is one of the major factors in getting this building built. They want a larger corporate presence with west coast companies in the CBD. Having major offices out in Burnaby just doesn't synergize if they want to offer infrastructure support to major corporations and even start ups in the CBD.

One of the major features of the new building will be the large data and networking center. This will make office space for start ups or IT divisions of other companies really consider the office space. And the location, Georgia and Seymour, can't be beat as a central location in downtown for easy access for a range of off site clients.

While real estate values are high and teetering on a bubble, construction costs and material prices are pretty low. Telus already pretty much owns the land, no? So building now on land you own before costs goes up is probably the best time to build. They don't have to rely on the market to sell any space, they can hold it for themselves and consolidate their offices across BC and Alberta in one place, reducing overhead, or lease it out as demand goes up for CBD office space. And in that regard, when the market heats up, they will have built office space and be ready to lease before other downtown projects even get started.

And when you are trying to attract young new technical employees, having downtown core offices attracts employees better than buildings in the middle of nowhere, away from Skytrain. I know a few people who have left some good jobs to work at Rogers, mostly because their office was 2 steps from Skytrain.

Plus, the building should be visible from most of the east side of the city, giving their logo a good, prominent location to hang out. You can't let the Shaw building get all the glory and do nothing about it and consider yourself their competition.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by SpikePhanta

^^ Telus still won't reach Shaw on Internet.
Not to mention Shaw is coming into the mobile market.

I like Telus for two things, the fact that they are based in Vancouver and their marketing, other than that Shaw all the way.
Not to mention Telus has the worst Customer service

Shaw is regional, Western Canada at best. Telus has gone almost completely national.

I've had good and bad experiences with both as a customer. As an investor, I'm buying Telus.

[SpikePhanta]

^^ Telus does look interesting as a company to invest in but mobile carriers don't have a monopoly on prices after the spectrum sale.
Many mobile carriers are looking towards content to grab revenues and Telus does not have such a thing.

Shaw = Canwest + Corus
Bell = Bell Globe media
Rogers = sports and small players
Telus = ????

Plus even if Telus is gaining in marketshare in Cable, internet streaming is the next big thing.
Telus's capacity will take a hit(considering theyre near potential already and new Optik TV takes a huge chunk of capacity)
whereas shaw has the advantage of a lot of capacity to handle future growth.
Which of course will help them as streaming gets bigger and as consumers want faster speeds with higher bandwidth.
Short term=Telus
Long term=Shaw.
I have both in a portfolio and they are both excellent and decent Western Canadian companies.

[logan5]

I think anybody's pretty safe going with any one of the Telecom Cartel.

[jlousa]

When I was 15 I was reading car and other magazines not buying utility stocks for my portofolio.

I'd recommend shorting the Shaw shares (always take internet investment advice with a grain of salt). They are going back to the drawing board with their mobile network. That's a sizable investment that they spent on that spectrum that is sitting idle. Looks like they are no longer going forward with a traditional mobile network and are looking at creating a data only network with the spectrum, who knows it might pay off but not any time soon. Telus has some novel items coming along and aren't sitting still either. It's a good time to be a consumer.

The new Telus building is going be incredible on a number of fronts.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by SpikePhanta

^^ Telus still won't reach Shaw on Internet.
Not to mention Shaw is coming into the mobile market.

I like Telus for two things, the fact that they are based in Vancouver and their marketing, other than that Shaw all the way.
Not to mention Telus has the worst Customer service

Telus' future strategy is all based on Fiber. Right now I'm in the countryside of the countryside in Japan on a small farm the edge of small 55,000 pop. city. 100km outside of Osaka.

And there is FTTH here (Fibre to the Home). 50MB/s UP and DOWN! So, it IS possible to have FTTH all the way out to Rosedale.

YouTube HD STREAMS without pausing, webpages load almost instantly.

If this is in the future of Telus... they will grab a LOT of internet share from Shaw.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by SpikePhanta

Plus even if Telus is gaining in marketshare in Cable, internet streaming is the next big thing.
Telus's capacity will take a hit(considering theyre near potential already and new Optik TV takes a huge chunk of capacity)
whereas shaw has the advantage of a lot of capacity to handle future growth.
Which of course will help them as streaming gets bigger and as consumers want faster speeds with higher bandwidth.
Short term=Telus
Long term=Shaw.
I have both in a portfolio and they are both excellent and decent Western Canadian companies.

I'd almost reverse that. Telus capacity seems smaller when you think in terms of ADSL but they've been aggressive on both the wireless space and the optical fibre space. Bell and Telus have both been putting massive amounts of optical fibre down for the past 10 years. There's also a lot of dark fiber out there.

I don't know how much Shaw has invested in Fiber, but if I were to guess, I'd say they're going to try and leverage their cable as much as they can. Cable is great, but when it comes to running new wires I'd much rather be running a cable half the size of a telephone cord than massive coax.

Optik TV requires Fiber. There's apparently a junction 60m or so from my place in Vancouver, which is apparently average according the tech. That will carry the 19.2MB/s download speeds.

Interestingly, Telus will actually use the Coax once inside your house to run multiple TVs from if your twisted pair isn't enough. I don't have a crystal ball, but I'd say that long-term Telus has more potential to be the better investment.

[WBC]

You should be careful about investing in Canadian telecom. Yes, they have nice dividends. However, competition from abroad is coming. Conservative government, now in majority, is likely to relax the rules of foreign ownership in telcos. And low cost providers like Wind are killing them on price and are going to continually squeeze their profits.

Now I know they Telus has a ton of money and that they are looking to build new HQ as a matter of prestige. However, the way things are going in high-tech more and more people work from home. Telus also outsourced a lot of their IT support to Philippines. So the need for this is dubious at best. But, hey its their money to burn...(actually it was your money ;-) )

I am actually thinking that work-from-home trends are something that people are not paying much attention to, but could potentially have a significant impact on traffic, need for transit, planning, etc down the road. My company has recently closed the Seattle office, kept the people and asked them to work from home. Similarly, while maintaining the same head count (apart from the receptionists and office admin staff) we have reduced our office space by 30-50% across the board in Canada and US. Maybe we should have a separate thread on this? I would be interested in what other people experiences are?

[SpikePhanta]

Originally Posted by jlousa

When I was 15 I was reading car and other magazines not buying utility stocks for my portofolio.

I'd recommend shorting the Shaw shares (always take internet investment advice with a grain of salt). They are going back to the drawing board with their mobile network. That's a sizable investment that they spent on that spectrum that is sitting idle. Looks like they are no longer going forward with a traditional mobile network and are looking at creating a data only network with the spectrum, who knows it might pay off but not any time soon. Telus has some novel items coming along and aren't sitting still either. It's a good time to be a consumer.

The new Telus building is going be incredible on a number of fronts.

You seem to never respond to my rebuttals so I'm not sure if im wasting time here, I'll send you a pm.
btw 16 now

Originally Posted by WBC

You should be careful about investing in Canadian telecom. Yes, they have nice dividends. However, competition from abroad is coming. Conservative government, now in majority, is likely to relax the rules of foreign ownership in telcos. And low cost providers like Wind are killing them on price and are going to continually squeeze their profits.

Hence why I said stuff about content, people would love to watch tv on their smartphones, and Shaw having Canwest (which includes the old Alliance specialty channels) and Shaw also having huge influence on Corus (another big specialty tv player) will put Shaw in an advantage.
But of course if the government were to put laws in place that would control whether or not the carriers can use their content holdings to the carriers advantage that could end up backfiring on the carriers (Shaw and BCE to be specific)

I seriously doubt that Wind, Mobilicity and any future small players will survive for years to come, there is a chance that the smaller players might end up being eaten up by the big 3, and shaw.

[Some guy]

Has this project been approved yet? There hasn't been any news for quite a while.

[jlousa]

Project is not approved yet, not even close. Will need to visit the UDP and go to council for a rezoning and then to the DPB. Hopefully there will be news in the summer.