All of this is from an article in the
Burnside News
Wright & Burnside
After being announced two summers ago, construction has started on the first phase of the Wright & Burnside Business Campus.
“The shovels are in the ground, even with the rain,” says Bill Hardman, president of The Hardman Group Limited.
The first of five office buildings will be three stories high and measure 60,000 square feet in size. It’s expected to be complete by the end of September.
“It’s a very quick construction process, so you’ll see a lot of changes quickly on site,” Hardman says.
He hopes the remaining buildings will be constructed at a rate of one every three years or less.
Perched atop the corner of Wright and Burnside Avenues, the plot of land is the highest point in Burnside and features a stunning view.
“It’s one of those properties that when a prospective tenant walks the property, they go ‘Wow!’” Hardman says. “Your expectation isn’t that you’ll see the kind of views you see up there.”
The anchor tenant for the first building is The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, which will occupy 20,000 square feet of space on one level. Scott Beattie, the regional vice president of business development at The Dominion, attributes the move to a number of reasons.
“The attraction to the Wright & Burnside project was a competitive rental structure, free parking for our staff and business partners, and the fact the project can accommodate our expansion needs,” Beattie says.
The ability to accommodate expansion needs is one of Wright & Burnside’s many strengths, Hardman says. He points to Dominion’s current needs, which are 20,000 square feet of space, and lays out what could be done if it reached 30,000 later down the road.
“We can accommodate that in multiple ways,” Hardman says. “[We could] possibly relocate tenants that are in the building now or we could accommodate it in another building. Because they’re all in close proximity, with the technology advantages [available today], it just works very well.”
Hardman says tenants are always thinking about if they will need to expand and what they would do if that became a reality.
The project is aiming for LEED certification – silver or gold – and will feature solar hot water heaters. Hardman says plug-ins for electric cars and a geothermal loop to provide heating and cooling may also be included.
“Our vision for the project is a true LEED campus development,” Hardman says. “It’s something that isn’t in place in the Maritimes and we believe that will become more and more important totenants and – really – their employees.”
Not surprisingly, Hardman is happy to have the first building under construction.
“It feels good,” he says. “The development of an office building is a little like a chess game because you never have all the pieces lined up at exactly the same time. Office leases typically run five to 10 years, so when you have a lead tenant like Dominion, you have to go full steam ahead and put the other pieces together.”
PODS
Despite the lousy weather, good progress is being made on the PODS building on Gloria McCluskey Avenue.
“When you take into account the amount of rain we’ve had the past few weeks, we’re not looking too bad,” says Martin Krest, project manager with Lindsay Construction. At that point in time, the foundation had just been finished.
The 13,750 square foot facility will house PODS, a moving and storage company.
“The advantage of PODS is we deliver the storage to the customers,” says Peter Hauderowicz, a co-owner in the Dartmouth location. “You don’t have to drive to a storage facility; we deliver a container to your location. You pack it at your pace and we pick it up.”
The PODS containers can then be stored at the PODS facility or moved to a new location. Hauderowicz says the PODS containers come in two different sizes: 16 x 8 feet and 12 x 8 feet. He says the Burnside facility should be able to house around 200 PODS containers.
Dorey Avenue
Top Construction has started site preparations on a Dorey Avenue lot, but is awaiting the necessary permits before really getting started. The company says the project is too premature to discuss, but once the pieces are in place it has something “really special” planned for the site.
Garland and John Savage Avenues
Bird Construction is well advanced on a project for Canadian Blood Services (CBS) on the corner of Garland and John Savage Avenues. CBS is withholding further comment on the project at this time