Langara College opening new digital arts school in False Creek Flats

Construction nearing completion on the new South Flatz office building at 565 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. (PCI Group)

Langara College is opening a satellite campus in the False Creek Flats that will offer programs that focus on the creative and digital arts.

The new 38,000-sq-ft ArtU at Langara campus will be located at the recently completed South Flatz office building at 565 Great Northern Way, which places the new facility strategically next to the new Emily Carr University (ECU) campus and the Great Northern Way digital arts campus jointly operated by UBC, SFU, ECU, and BCIT.

“This is an exciting project for Langara. Langara’s mandate as a public college is to provide and build a strong, sustainable, innovative economy that works for everyone in the province. The ArtU partnership accomplishes exactly this,” said Ajay Patel, Langara’s vice president of external development, in a statement.

“These programs will train a workforce needed to fill high demand jobs in this important sector. We are really excited to work with the academy to deliver high-level programming in the creative arts for games and film.”

Other tenants in this 160,000-sq-ft office building developed by PCI Group include Samsung (20,000-sq-ft), Finning International (29,000-sq-ft), Spaces Co-working (39,000-sq-ft), and Blackbird Interactive (28,000-sq-ft).

A striking red-coloured, flower-shaped pavilion next to this building and ECU will open as a new location for Nemesis Coffee later this year.

“Blackbird Interactive is one of the fastest growing independent game developers in British Columbia and we are therefore thrilled the new Langara College and Academy of Art University campus has chosen Vancouver for its location,” said David McKay, who oversees talent acquisition for Blackbird Interactive.

“We rely on a supply of talented game developers and we are therefore excited to welcome the Langara College and Academy of Art teams and to work with them to continue our growth into the future.”

South Flatz is the first of six office buildings slated by PCI Group for the immediate area around the future SkyTrain station at the intersection of Thornton Street and Great Northern Way as part of the Broadway Extension. The developer plans to build two million-sq-ft of office space over several phases through the mid-to-late 2020s.

Over the longer term, as outlined in False Creek Flats Plan, the municipal government has plans to transform this area of the district into a creative and tech hub.

Langara College opening new digital arts school in False Creek Flats

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