Lawyer gets first Dockside office lease
A Victoria law firm is the first client to sign a lease for Dockside Green's new office space.
June 6, 2008
Darron Kloster
On the Street
Times Colonist (Victoria)
A Victoria law firm is the first client to sign a lease for Dockside Green's new office space.
Hemminger and Schmid will move from its current location on Fort Street's Antique Row in March as the office portion of the development is being completed.
Principal Val Hemminger, who will move with colleague David Marcus Schmid, said she jumped at the chance to for the space in the LEED platinum $1.2-billion mixed-use development on the Upper Harbour.
" I've been watching Dockside Green ever since they made their first development proposal to Victoria city council, and I was immediately struck by how the vision for Dockside Green -- people finding a way to live and work in harmony with the natural world, reducing our impact on the environment and creating positive human impact rather than negative -- is similar to the vision we have for our company, our clients and the work we do," says Hemminger.
Total office space at Dockside is more than 113,000 square feet, while the retail component is just over 73,000 square feet.
The B.C. Oil & Gas Commission has also agreed to a lease at Dockside, and has committed to developing its new interior according to LEED standards.
A biomass gasification system, which will make Dockside the first large-scale project in North America to be greenhouse-gas positive, was one of the reasons the oil and gas commission chose Dockside, said spokesman Steve Simmons.
"As a regulator for a significant portion of the province's energy sector, we want to set an example for our industry to follow, just as Dockside Green has done with its commitment to sustainable urban development," said Simmons.
Meanwhile, Cliff Lear, who runs an organic bakery out of the old Princess Mary site at Dockside, will be the first to open in the development's new retail space, likely in late September. Ryan Taylor is expected to open Caffé Fantastico next door to Lear's operation.