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Originally Posted by LeftCoaster
It's five. The beautiful part is it's nearly all gone already and WeWork is already well down the path in leasing their next location.
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Where the heck do you get this information. I lurk in the VanDev group's Slack channel and I had no idea WeWork Burrard Station was filled up, nor did I know WeWork is looking for a second Vancouver location. All I know is that the first location is opening sometime in the fall and the tenant list hasn't been made public yet. Are you privy to names of particular companies that will be in the space (you don't have to divulge the names if there are privacy/confidentiality concerns, I just wanted to know if you are familiar with any tenants)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LeftCoaster
Tableau canceled their Vancouver office at the last minute due to cost of living,
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If Tableau pulled out of Vancouver due to CoL concerns, I definitely would of heard about it, because it would have been on Techvibes, BiV, BCBusiness, maybe even the Globe and Mail.
Unless...you're talking about Tableau's initial plans for their presence here. I recall the news reports from 2015, Tableau moved into 885 West Georgia (Hongkong Bank of Canada Building) with the intent of opening a temporary office, while they searched for a more permanent office presence downtown. I see only
four positions at the Vancouver office (a few years ago I saw a lot more), so in that case, you'd be right; Tableau has nixed its expansion here, cutting back on its initial plans for Vancouver headcount; and I don't doubt that the dizzying housing costs (especially for 2br/3br housing for executives who want to bring their families) probably played a significant factor.
But even then, I heard nothing about this from Avison Young's reports or something like BCTIA. Where'd you hear it?!
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Originally Posted by LeftCoaster
Mobify moved into 725 several months ago, the deal was announced last year. The space is super cool.
Msft didn't move to 725 Granville, they kept their entire premises at 840 Cambie, 725 was pure expansion. As far as I know the Animal Logic premises is in the old Vision Critical space or something like that
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Thanks for the correction. By the way, I forgot to mention one other high-profile move: A Thinking Ape (YC W08) moved from 322 Water a few years ago to 1132 Alberni, and if the information in the Canada Corporations Act registry is correct, the company has moved again, into Bentall Three. I wasn't able to find any dates, though.
Anyway...I did some digging and after looking through back numbers of Avison Young reports, it became much clearer. I was under the impression that the buildings in Microsoft's Yaletown campus had no other tenants, but it turns out several tech companies have leased space in 840/858.
I think this is an accurate of Microsoft's Vancouver presence:
840 Cambie: Microsoft's Yaletown campus (part of the VDC), which, if I recall, works on the following: Windows, Office, Enterprise Solutions, the Xbox One platform and a few others, all while liaising with Redmond HQ.
858 Beatty: The second building in Microsoft's Yaletown campus, home to AAA gamedev studio The Coalition (they make Gears of War) as well as Microsoft BigPark Studios. I don't know very much about BigPark, but I did meet a BigPark employee at the July 2016 #TechVancouver event. He told me he works on the UFC.tv Xbox One client. Interesting anecdote.
725 Granville: An R&D expansion called the "Excellence Centre". LEED Gold, opened by Justin Trudeau. Anecdotally I've heard MCEC alone has 650 engineers. I'm not sure if MCEC is part of VDC, or if VDC is part of MCEC. Which is which?
So, Vision Critical was at 858 until they moved to 200 Granville, way back in October 2012. It was this vacated space that Animal Logic is currently leasing. Avigilon moved from its original HQ in Bentall One in 2010 to 1038 Hamilton, then moved again to 555 Robson (aka the William Farrell Building, aka BC Tel's old HQ, aka Amazon's old office in Vancouver) in 2016, buying 555 outright for $42M the year before. Avigilon moved into Amazon's old at 555 when
they moved into the Telus Garden (510 West Georgia), and so far as I know, their old space at 858 is still empty.
This means, at some time or another, the Yaletown buildings had the following tenants:
840 Cambie: Microsoft VDC,
858 Beatty: The Coalition, Microsoft BigPark, Animal Logic, Aviglion, Vision Critical
You know what would be really interesting? A public record of the various companies that lease space in office buildings. Like, 555 Robson could have (Amazon.com 2011-2015, Avigilon 2015-current), or something like that. I guess I could search up business licenses from CoV open data, and Canada Corporations Act company registrations (since they have HQ addresses), but not a lot of historic data there.
On the subject of MCEC, as many may know, the space was originally going to be L-1 transfers to Redmond and miscellaneous TFWs; top overseas talent recruited by Microsoft that couldn't get into the United States because of immigration laws. But, I'm actually not sure why Microsoft backtracked on its original plan to make it a holding tank for Redmond-bound engineers.
I was aware of the TFW fiasco in 2014-2015, and of the criticism even by the Harper government of companies exploiting the TFW program (which was designed for, like, seasonal workers (fisheries, agriculture) and foreign artists/musicians) to fill jobs where there are plenty of skilled citizens and permanent residents willing to do the work, just because they're not willing to pay competitive enough salaries.
The
original documents, which you probably have seen, only promised 6% of MCEC positions would go to Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Of course, these were draft proposals submitted to the B.C. Ministry of Labour and CIC, which were subject to change. Plus, they're dated way back in February-March 2014, a few months before the TFW scandal really hit the media cycle.
My hypothesis is one of the following:
1. As the TFW scandal built through 2014 and into 2015, the Harper government's hand was forced, and CIC pushed Microsoft to have more jobs for Canadian citizens and permanent residents at the MCEC. Especially with a federal election looming.
Or,
2. Once the Trudeau government came into power, they were furious that Microsoft would bring in TFWs to the MCEC when there was so much tech talent coming out of UBC and SFU, so the feds chewed them out and as a result Microsoft was forced to have a larger proportion of jobs going to citizens/PRs.
The second option seems less likely, because the MCEC opened on June 17, 2016, only six months after the throne speech; that would not be nearly enough time to scale back the number of visa jobs and increase the number of permanent positions; my guess is it would require a year, at least to get this done. So, I'll take the Third Way: I think the TFW scandal forced the Harper government to require Microsoft to hire more citizens/PRs, and this pressure was continued by the Trudeau government when they came into power in 2015.
The funny thing is, I didn't see any government documents, Avison Young reports, news stories, etc. saying that Microsoft had a change of heart and would be hiring more citizens/PRs at MCEC. The common wisdom on Reddit and HN is that MCEC is nothing more than a visa holding tank, which is absolutely not true. Could anyone help me try and find said documentation?