120,000-sq-ft co-working office coming to new 400 West Georgia tower

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

Spaces will occupy roughly a third of the office floor area at Westbank’s new office tower at 400 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver.

The Amsterdam-based co-working company announced today that the 120,393-sq-ft office will be its fourth location in Vancouver and second largest location in North America, after the planned 127,158-sq-ft location at The Well in downtown Toronto.

Construction on the 24-storey, 301-ft-tall, 375,000-sq-ft office tower at the southwest corner of West Georgia Street and Homer Street – just across from Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch and the future offices of Amazon at the Canada Post redevelopment – is well underway. The tower is slated for a 2020 completion.

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

The building’s stacked cube form is inspired by Japanese cube lamps, and it features green living walls, glass floors, operable windows, patios, a two-storey landscaped rooftop terrace, and a “fresh air lobby” designed to resemble a rainforest.

“The design architects, OSO, are doing the interior design for Spaces West Georgia,” said Roz McQueen with Westbank in a statement. “This is an incredible opportunity for all of the creativity that went into the exterior of the building to now be woven into the individual user-workspace.”

In July, Deloitte also announced it will be moving its Vancouver headquarters from Four Bentall Centre to the top 10 floors of this new tower – taking up about 117,000 sq. ft. of space.

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

Artistic rendering of the office tower at 400 West Georgia in downtown Vancouver. (OSO / Merrick Architecture / Westbank)

Spaces opened its first Vancouver location, a 35,000-sq-ft office, at 151 West Hastings Street in Gastown last week.

Later this year, it will continue its expansion in Vancouver with the opening of a 70,000-sq-ft location within the old Tom Lee Music building on Granville Street and a 40,000-sq-ft location within the new South Flatz tech building in the False Creek Flats.

An exceedingly low office space vacancy rate in Vancouver’s city centre is fuelling the demand for new office developments, with co-working spaces for entrepreneurs and smaller businesses as some of the leading tenants of these projects.

Spaces currently has three locations in the country – in Toronto, Montreal, and now Vancouver. Over the next two years, it has plans to add 15 additional offices in Canada. Globally, the company has 137 locations in 30 countries and 94 cities.

The company has made some bold moves in recent weeks, which is perhaps best highlighted by its 15-year lease of 111,000-sq-ft of office space within New York City’s Chrysler Building.

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