Green technology meets mass transit in south Vancouver

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Green technology and mass transit will share space in south Vancouver.  Westport Innovations has announced it’s moving.

The company, which researches and manufactures natural gas engines, has been based in Vancouver since it began operations in 1995 and now employs 500 workers in the city.

The company currently uses seven buildings in Metro Vancouver, with the head office located in Richmond.  Westport Vice-President of Sustainable Energy Futures Karen Hamberg says the company is consolidating its operations, moving into a tower at Marine Drive Station along the Canada Line.

“The majority of our Lower Mainland staff lives in Vancouver,” she says.  “The future move to the site gives us the space and the location that we’ll need, in an area of the city that we’ve called home for quite some time.”

Along with saving money, Hamberg hopes the move creates synergy within the company that is not possible in an operation that is scattered across many locations.

“The benefit for us, being at a transit hub, is that it consolidates all of our Vancouver employees in one location, with the exception of those people that need to be working in the labs,” says Hamberg.  “It improves collaboration.”

A research lab up the street at 75th and Barnard will remain separate.  The new building is scheduled to open in 2015.

Westport will occupy seven floors of the 14-floor office tower currently under construction along the Canada Line.  The site will also include condos, an 11-screen movie theatre, and a 46-thousand square foot grocery store.  It’s all part of a $370 million project being developed by PCI.  The building is being constructed to LEED Gold standards.

The developer says there will be space for up to 15-hundred full-time office jobs once the project is complete, along with another 650 retail jobs.  The site is also expected to add another two-million transit trips annually to the Canada Line and buses in the area.