Vancouver's Arthur Erickson Place achieves zero-carbon building certification

The MacMillan Bloedel Building at 1075 West Georgia Street in Vancouver is now renamed as Arthur Erickson Place. (Reliance Properties)

Canada Green Building Council has provided Arthur Erickson Place in downtown Vancouver with a “Zero Carbon Building — Performance” certification.

This green building standard certification is a major feat, considering this 27-storey office tower was built in 1969.

Since 2022, the building’s new ownership group — Reliance Properties, Crestpoint Real Estate Investments, and KingSett Capital — performed extensive upgrades to the building systems, including optimized HVAC controls, new electric boilers, heat pumps, and air handling units, as well as the creation of a rooftop beehive.

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The upgrade to the tower, which has 363,000 sq ft of total building floor area, began in 2022 and is expected to reach completion in 2025.

These “decarbonization” measures will reduce the building’s carbon emissions by 97% and cut the building’s energy consumption by 40%.

“This project is particularly special to Reliance Properties because we’ve called Vancouver home for over 50 years and are constantly striving to enhance the tenant experience,” said Jon Stovell, president of Reliance Properties.

“Attaining Zero Carbon Building Performance certification for this building contributes to the health and well-being of our tenants and towards a sustainable future, which is something we are incredibly proud of.”

1075 west georgia street arthur erickson place macmillan bloedel building

The MacMillan Bloedel Building at 1075 West Georgia Street in Vancouver has been renamed Arthur Erickson Place. (Reliance Properties)

The partnership acquired the iconic property at 1075 West Georgia Street in 2019. In September 2021, the tower abandoned its previous longtime name, MacMillan Bloedel Building and adopted its new name, Arthur Erickson Place, which is a recognition of the namesake architect behind the building’s design.

The tower has received a number of accolades — such as BOMA’s Building of the Year (1969), the Massey Medal for Architecture (1970), Design Canada’s Concrete Award Certificate of Merit (1971), and a feature on the front cover of Time magazine — and is now considered an excellent example of the brutalist architecture style. It gained the City of Vancouver’s Class A heritage classification in 1993 and was added to the Canadian Register of Historic Places in 2008.

The ownership group has noted that it is no longer seeking a redevelopment of Arthur Erickson Place’s rear parkade into a 46-storey tower with rental housing and hotel uses.

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