$150M Ocean tower making waves in downtown Victoria

After a prolonged excavation, Telus’s 10-storey Ocean tower is taking shape in downtown Victoria.

The $150-million project is due for finish by mid-2026, says Manasweeta Bhatia, Telus’s director of real estate developments.

“Telus has always invested in signature buildings,” she says.

In the Victoria case, the Ocean is already making waves in the downtown skyline.

“We’re creating an architectural landmark,” Bhatia adds.

When Telus put out an international call for architects in 2018, 12 firms responded. Eventually Toronto-headquartered Diamond Schmitt was chosen. 

 

 

“It’s a great design, leading edge in all systems,” Bhatia notes. “It meets the climate needs of today and will be relevant for the next 50 years.”

Step 3 of the BC Energy Step Code is the target, along with Class AAA and LEED Platinum. EllisDon is the construction manager.

The building will have three levels of underground parking. The 10 storeys include ground-level retail, eight floors of office space and one floor of amenity space. The greened-up rooftop is a quasi-11th floor.

Total office area will be nearly 154,000 square feet plus another roughly 5,300 square feet of rentable street level commercial space.

Telus will occupy about 35 per cent of the building.

The lobby will be reach two storeys with an eight-metre-tall digital display screen.

The area is designed to transform into an auditorium. As well, there will be lobby retail space, says James Bell, a Telus real estate development manager.

Ocean’s form and details are dramatic.

“The building has V-shaped floors, culminating in a rooftop patio,” says Bell.

The rooftop will also feature a photovoltaic array that creates a canopy.

A water feature, set among planters and small trees, will cascade to lower floors.

The building itself is a glass prism shape, with a striking curtain wall.

Known as a speedwall, with modular, triple-pane glass, it lends itself to expeditious construction. Flynn is the supplier and installer.

“Panels are installed in half the time of traditional construction,” Bell says.

The “sawtooth cutout” design is meant to appear like a ship, crashing into waves.

The Ocean name for the building follows on two other Telus projects, the Garden (Vancouver) and Sky (Calgary). Naming of the structures relates to a connection with nature and where the building is located.

As well, Telus is working with an as-yet unnamed Indigenous artist who is creating wood features for the building.

Indigenous people were also onsite during excavation, Bhatia says. It was, in fact, the unexpected site conditions that were responsible for the initial delays. If any items were found during excavation, work was stopped.

Archeologists were onsite or on call, Bhatia notes.

Historically, the area was on Victoria’s Inner Harbour. Remains of a structure, believed to be a Chinese laundry service, were found, along with a collection of “quite interesting” bottles, says Bell.

“We’d love to incorporate them into the building,” he adds.

Indigenous items or middens were not discovered, but large boulders, shoring and remains of a basement were encountered.

With work now above-grade, at level three, construction progress will be more predictable.

Over 30 trades are onsite; labour or material shortages have not been encountered. And after a few years of price escalations, material and labour costs appear to be settling, Bell says.

One challenge has been the size of the construction area.

“It’s a very condensed site,” Bell says, which makes it difficult to co-ordinate workers and generate needed storage space.

When Ocean got the City of Victoria’s green light at the close of 2021, Safe Wings, a group that works to reduce bird deaths from collisions with windows, soon voiced concerns about the building’s reflective glass.

Telus worked with Safe Wings and came up with options. The solution is to use glass with a diagonal pattern that will be most visible to birds, Bhatia says.

As well, vegetation will not be placed close to glass, so as not to confuse birds and lighting levels will be adjusted for bird safety at dawn and dusk.

Since Telus’s avian efforts with Ocean, the City of Victoria has now developed protocols related to bird-hit mitigation, Bhatia says.

“The building is inspired by the landscape. It’s an ambitious vision,” she says.