Dear Editor:
Let's face the facts. If the nine-storey office tower is built on top of the city's civic centre, chances are this tower will remain city's responsibility indefinitely.
Even if a private buyer comes along, the city would not be able to sell the tower, not completely, anyway, because this is not a freestanding structure.
It forms a complex with the civic centre, which will share several structural elements and building systems, like foundation, parkade and roof.
Everyone who lives in a strata building knows well about maintenance fees and special assessments. Similarly, the City of New Westminster will remain responsible for such expenses for the business tower/ civic-centre complex.
In addition, the city will retain control over certain business tower usage, as far as it affects the civic centre.
So, if the business tower is built, it shall conform to the same environmental, energy
and sustainability requirements, as all civic buildings in British Columbia.
We know it will be LEED-certified, but these days LEED is considered a "minimum requirement."
A number of buildings in Metro Vancouver recently have been built to much more advanced standards, which include features like charge stations for electric cars, living roofs, energy recovery systems, ISO 50001 compliance and use of local materials as in B.C. Wood First Act.
Examples of such buildings are North Vancouver library, Richmond oval, Van dusen Gardens visitor centre, Vancouver Convention Centre, several buildings at the UBC and SFU campuses and the Oxford office tower in Downtown Vancouver.
Making the New Westminster business tower a 'high-performance' building will be truly good for the environment. It will be good for business, too.
In tomorrow's highly competitive office space market (there are 20 towers being added in Vancouver alone, plus a very large one in Metrotown), superior green credentials help promote the building, get a lot of positive media coverage, attract progressive-minded tenants, make leasing easier and command higher rates.
Any job worth doing is worth doing well, as people say. The business tower/ civic centre at Columbia and Eighth Street shall be the "greenest" building structure in New Westminster.
At least until a new library and aquatic centre are built.
Vladimir Krasnogor, New Westminster
