The Telus Ocean project has finally been approved by a 6-3 vote by the Victoria council. Creating up to 2,000 new jobs, the building will be constructed at 767 Douglas Street with a mixture of offices and community spaces (via Chek News).
According to Lisa Helps, the mayor of Victoria, the project will be constructed with the environment in mind. “It’s a zero-carbon building, it’s built to step 3 of the Step Code, so the highest energy performance,” Helps noted.
Helps added that some nearby residents were opposed to the project claiming it is too tall and too dense and competes with some of the nearby heritage buildings. “it’s going to be the most sustainable office building in British Columbia,” she said.
“A lot of the opposition was that it doesn’t fit into the heritage area, and I think the answer to that is Victoria of the past has to work with the Victoria of the future,” Helps said. “There are tradeoffs. It’s a large building on a small site, but to me, it really pivots Victoria to face the 22nd century in a really interesting way and it achieves almost everything that Victoria 3.0 sets out to achieve.”
The developer, Aryze, says the goal is for the project to be the new business and innovation centre for Victoria.
