Groundbreaking Ceremony for Seaspan's Vancouver Office

 

Seaspan hosted a groundbreaking ceremony today to announce it has officially started construction on a new head office in North Vancouver.

The 7,800 square metre (84,000 square foot) corporate headquarters, scheduled for completion in late 2017, will be constructed at the foot of Pemberton Avenue on the south western spit of the property. Once complete, the building will be four storeys high and include state-of-the-art office space, meeting rooms, expanded bike storage, electric vehicle charging stations, a full-service cafeteria, as well as panoramic views of the Vancouver Harbor front.

It will house 350 Seaspan staff (up from the current 130) from across its various companies. The office design will also incorporate a number of green building standards such as passive heating and reduced water use, and involve an extensive reconfiguration of the current parking lot, including the addition of 122 new stalls.
 
“Today is an exciting day for Seaspan and its 2200 employees,” said Jonathan Whitworth, CEO - Seaspan. “This ceremony not only marks the latest step in Seaspan’s renaissance in Canada’s shipbuilding and marine industrial base, but also represents our role in the resurgence of sustained employment and economic activity on the West Coast.”
 
“Today’s ceremony represents significant progress in the execution of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS),” said Jonathan Wilkinson, Member of Parliament for North Vancouver. “The Government of Canada remains fully supportive of this program and of Seaspan’s important role in it. For North Vancouver, the shipbuilding projects being undertaken by Seaspan under the NSPS will have a significant economic impact – including the creation of a significant number of well-paying jobs.”
 
Seaspan’s groundbreaking event follows on the heels of the start of construction on the first NSPS ship - the Canadian Coast Guard’s Offshore Fisheries Science Vessel (OFSV). Construction of the OFSV started this June after the on-time and under-budget completion of Vancouver Shipyard’s two-year, $170 million Shipyard Modernization Project.
 
Seaspan expects to hire another 1,300 trade workers and office staff over the next five years. It is estimated that Seaspan’s NSPS work will create 5,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs over the next 20 years, produce almost $500 million per year in GDP for B.C.’s economy, and mean thousands of people will get the opportunity for an exciting new career in shipbuilding.
 
“We have successfully completed the first step in transforming Vancouver Shipyards into the most modern facility of its kind in North America and established a shipbuilding and ship repair centre of excellence on Canada’s West Coast,” said Whitworth. “Now Seaspan is focused on ensuring our shipyard, marine and corporate employees have a modern, clean and exceptionally-built head office to work from.”