The people at Remington Development Corporation are rightly pleased with the high- quality fundamentals of their soon-to-be-built Fairview Business Centre.

But to a visitor looking at architectural and other plans at Remington’s southeast Calgary offices, it’s the extra details that really stand out, such as the clock tower.

The building, going up at Fairmount Drive and Glenmore Trail S.E., features a central clock tower, not unlike the one that rescued Michael J. Fox’s destiny in the movie Back to the Future.

This attractive touch of heritage detailing in a state-of-the-art, office-industrial condominium building is emblematic, in a way, of the Fairview Business Centre’s uniqueness.

Remington’s vice president of marketing David Weinkauf, left, and project manager Jamie Cooper with Kathy Morton and Viviana Shaneman of Serena Fashions. Serena was the first company to purchase a condo in the Fairview Business Centre.

Set for late-July completion, it has a classic facade of brick and Manitoba stone, high-quality construction, environmentally advantageous green glass and a structural design destined to be contemporary for many years to come. The best of the future with a respectful tip of the hat to the past.

“Remington Development has a special clientele – a clientele that appreciates quality,” explains David Weinkauf, vice president of marketing.

“Our quality is superior. We are catering to a particular market.”

That market is likely to move quickly on the Fairview project. It contains 19 units available for private ownership, each ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 sq. ft. They can be amalgamated to form larger units.

Typical buyers will be businesses with warehouse and office components. They can’t be retailers, although warehouse-type businesses selling products too big to be hauled to the car, such as hot tubs and home appliances, are eligible. As well, up to 10 per cent of floor space can be retail, so a hot-tub vendor could sell filters, for example.

Remember the realtor’s timeless chant about “location, location, location?” The Fairview Business Centre is in the middle of Calgary’s most sought-after light-industrial area, with the lowest vacancy rate – the south-central corridor between Macleod Trail and Blackfoot Trail, adjacent to Glenmore Trail.

A bus stop is right on the site and the LRT is about two blocks north of the project.

Besides giving the new building classy touches for which the company has long been renowned – founder Randy Remington came up with the clock tower idea – project heads dictated pre-cast insulated concrete instead of the more-typical block construction, used by others.

All told, it’s a package that has generated plenty of excitement in the local business community.

“We can’t wait to move in,” says Viviana Shaneman, owner of Serena Fashions. “We’ve been in the same place for about 17 years and it’s going to be great working in such a beautiful building.

“We’ve been working with the builder to customize the design to suit us perfectly. Remington has been great through the whole process – very professional.”

Adds Serena general manager Kathy Morton: “We looked around at the different options, but this is definitely THE place to be. The location is perfect, centrally located, so it’s easy for our employees to get there every day.

It helps that it’s near the LRT station.

“And the exposure we get from being right along Glenmore Trail, Fairmount Drive and Centre Street is fantastic – right in the heart of a great business community.”

Remington Development also takes good care of its sub-trades.

“We build long-term relationships and receive preferential treatment from the sub-trades and really good, drop-of-the-hat service,” notes project manager Jamie Cooper.

Ryan Remington, also in marketing, says: “We take our traditional business practices and combine them with state-of-the-art techniques for building.

“What we have is probably the most advanced building of its type you’re going to find. Our prices are reflective of that, but our customers see the value in that.”

Another little detail that leaps out is the size of parking stalls. They’ll be eight inches wider than required, and two feet longer. And there will be 144 of them, not the 71 required by code. Thirty-eight will be designated visitor stalls.

“If you go to some developments, you’ll find the parking stalls are really tight,” Weinkauf says. “You’re constantly getting door dings.

“We take those things into account. We try to build with common sense as well as practicality.”

Then Weinkauf gets back to some of the major attractions of the project, including the construction quality. It’s not there simply for current market appeal.

“We’re also building for longevity. Because our product is always being sought after by the large institutions and pension funds, they’re placing money for long term.

“By putting that same quality into this project, the resale value on this – 10, 20, 30 years down the road – is going to be much greater than most of the other product out there.”

Which leads to the question of purchasing this type of unit, rather than the more common lease arrangement elsewhere.

Weinkauf says neither choice is inherently good or bad – it depends on the business.

“Low interest rates and high demand for ownership are fuelling projects like this. It’s truly an opportunity the market is looking for and I believe we will be sold out by the time the project is completed at the end of July,” says Weinkauf.

For more information, call 403.255.7003 or go to www.remingtoncorp.com.