Construction begins on Nature's Path's new headquarters office in Vancouver

May 4 2022, 9:11 pm

More than three years after it was approved by the City of Vancouver’s Development Permit Board, construction commenced last month on a 10-storey office building immediately adjacent to SkyTrain VCC-Clark Station and the East Van Cross (Monument to Vancouver) in the southeasternmost corner of the False Creek Flats.

With nearly 170,000 sq ft of office space, this new building at 2102 Keith Drive — owned and developed by BentallGreenOak — will be a sizeable addition to the growing cluster of new office buildings along Great Northern Way, and one of the first sizeable standalone office buildings in the city to begin construction since the pandemic began.

Its anchor tenant is set to be Nature’s Path, which is currently headquartered near SkyTrain Bridgeport Station in North Richmond. The new Vancouver building will serve as the organic foods company’s new headquarters but it has yet to determine how many floors it will exactly occupy. About 750 people are employed at the company across four locations, with most being office jobs based at the 22,000-sq-ft Richmond office and the remainder at three manufacturing facilities.

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Natures Path construction April 30 2022

Construction on 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver, as of April 30, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Natures Path construction April 30 2022

Construction on 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver, as of April 30, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

“The exact configuration [of the building] will be determined by our growth,” Omar Al-Sallal, a spokesperson for Nature’s Path, told Daily Hive Urbanized. He adds that the company will also retain the existing Richmond location, which has been its headquarters for over three decades.

“We are constantly reviewing the best use of all our spaces and we will make the appropriate decisions as to how we will occupy when the time comes.”

Just like the vast majority of office-based workplaces, Nature’s Path’s Richmond office shifted to a work-from-home arrangement for much of the past two years. As of March 2022, the office officially shifted to a hybrid work model of both an office- and home-based workplace.

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

But physical office workplaces in thoughtful locations still have a purpose; the highly accessible Vancouver office location — at the starting point of the Millennium Line Broadway Extension to Arbutus — strategically allows Nature’s Path to retain and attract new talent, and the ample space provides it with the capacity to expand well into the future.

The company acquired Anita’s Organic Mill in Chilliwack in late 2021 and continues to be in an expansion mode to take on a larger share of the organic foods market.

“The new office and location first perfectly with the growth trajectory Nature’s Path is on. We are an expanding business, and the False Creek Flats is definitely an expanding area,” continued Al-Sallal.

“The new location can actively grow with us. It’s in an incredible location next to SkyTrain. We think the City of Vancouver has an amazing plan and it’s not just about creating office space but also about building thousands of new housing units for people to live in. We believe it will soon be one of the most vibrant neighbourhoods in the city, where thousands can live and work.”

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

It was previously stated in 2019 the building could hold as many as 2,000 office workers.

At the earliest, the estimated completion of the building is 2025, which also coincides with the opening of the Millennium Line extension. Ventana Construction is the project’s contractor, while Dialog is the architectural firm.

This will be a mass timber structure with concrete cores that enclose elevator shafts and staircases also providing seismic resilience and fire safety to the design of wooden floor plates and structural supports. A honeycomb-shaped, braced-frame structural exoskeleton not only provides the building with a unique appearance but establishes various balconies for outdoor amenity spaces for workers. This is in addition to a large outdoor amenity space on the rooftop. Four underground levels will also provide 193 vehicle parking stalls.

Much of the eastern half of the property will be left undeveloped, as a diagonal regional district sewer right-of-way cuts through the site. Instead, the project will create a public space with landscaping that establishes a highly accessible public realm that celebrates the East Van Cross.

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

2105 Keith Drive Vancouver Dialog BentallGreenOak Nature's Path

Artistic rendering of 2150 Keith Drive, Vancouver. (Dialog/BentallGreenOak)

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