She was a pretty young thing, standing on Eighth Avenue with an outfit none of the others could match. In later years, however, she might have been using too much makeup.
She was the Petro Chemical Building and when she was created in the early 1950s she was Calgary’s first curtain wall building. She’s now undergoing a complete makeover — including removal of the green stucco added in the ’70s. Maxim 2000 Group Inc. is renovating the building for owner Paddock Holdings Ltd. of Vancouver, and will have its own offices on the 9th floor.
Aluminum panelling will replace the stucco on the outside to restore the Art Deco appearance, says Maxim president Shawn Samol. Spotlights will shine up the sides to give a parliamentary or Parthenon-like feature.
The interior was gutted in the renovation. The new interiors have exposed, higher ceilings in place of T-bar drop ceilings, with the ducting exposed. There’s a mix of old and new architectural features.
“Funky isn’t the most intelligent way to say it,” says Samol, “but I don’t know too many other words to describe it.”
He describes part of the business of his development and project management company as retrofitting older buildings with new technology. “You get an eclectic product, like seeing computers in a monastery.”
Once again a smart-looking building, Petro Chemical is becoming a smart building as well. The fun space aspect is one of four elements of Maxim’s renovations. The others are loading up telecommunications features, installing cogeneration plants and integrating building controls.
The telecom features are based on a point-of-presence, or POP switch, a hardware unit in the basement. Wiring is a fibreoptic backbone and category-5 copper cabling. The switch will open up every telecommunications feature in the world to tenants, says Samol. He cites massive e-commerce access as a possibility, and receptionists being able to switch calls instantly to desks in other cities.
The cogeneration plant, still being designed, will use a natural gas turbine to provide heat and power for the building. It will not only heat the building but cool it in summer through a heat exchanger.
The only thing tenants will pay for is the natural gas to run the turbine, says Samol.
Integrating control systems means that the environmental controls can work, for example, with the security system. If you swipe your access card after hours, the building will automatically turn on the lights and turn up the heat in your office. “Instead of operating 24/7 . . . this system will ramp up or ramp down as need be,” he says.
With the basic building complete, the leasing process is starting for the 90,000-sq.-ft. project. With 9,500 sq. ft. per floor, Samol says it has good spaces for small- to medium-sized companies.
Prospective tenants include “all companies that have the need for a significant amount of telecommunications and would like cost-effective space that looks like expensive space. Commercial real estate firms call this Class B, but we think this is in a class of its own — a niche or speciality-type building.”
He suggests junior oil companies might be interested, especially since the building is considered downtown, the traditional location for oil companies. And small to medium engineering or architecture firms, especially the latter, have fun with the architectural features.
A Calgary land developer announced in December it plans to buy back about five per cent of its shares in a normal course issuer bid.
Genesis Land Development Corp. believes its shares are trading at less than their net asset value. The bid will expire on the earlier of Dec. 12, 2001, or the day the Genesis acquires the maximum number of common shares subject to it. Genesis closed Friday at 49 cents, up eight cents.
The company behind Three Sisters Resorts has received approval to buy back a million of its shares.
TGS Properties Ltd. is seeking 4.4 per cent of its public float in a normal course issuer bid that opens today and expires no later than Jan. 2, 2002.
TGS trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange as TGP, and closed Friday up five cents at $1.55.
Real estate site 411HomeNet has included moving with its services. It has added relocation search engine Moving.com to its buyer service directory, providing competitive quotes from relocation service providers.
CIBC Mortgages Inc. has added a new division that will sell third-party mortgages as well as its own. Home Loans Canada will have about 350 mortgage specialists.
Calgary telecommunications company Shift Networks Inc. has picked AccessLan Communications Inc. of San Jose, Calif., to provide equipment for its building exchanges.
Bill Macdonnell, a vice-president at Shift, says it will put AccessLan’s stackable broadband switches into phone rooms and use the existing wiring to provide services including voice-over-Internet to building tenants.
Happy New Year, New Century and New Millennium (for real this time) to one and all in the businesses that make up commercial real estate, and to the real estate industry in general. And a special thanks to those who have taken the time to help me understand the ins and outs of offices, shops and factories.
Web Watch:
www.genesisland.com
www.proprietaryinc.com
www.cibc.com
www.hlcmortgages.com
www.shiftnetworks.com
www.accesslan.com
