The Armour Group

A sense of place┬áArmour Group has grown steadily for more than 36 years with a business model that was way ahead of its time. Now it has brought environmental performance to a large office project with a first for Atlantic Canada, as Stuart McCrea explains to John OÔÇÖHanlon. Halifax, Nova Scotia, goes back 260 years, having been only recently established when Captain James Cook wintered there and carried out his first surveys. Accordingly, its history is as important to its residents as its future development. It is a place with a sensitive identity, and Stuart McCrea constantly returns to that theme when discussing the buildings that the family-owned firm has developed there over the last 36 years. The Armour Group was founded in 1972 by StuartÔÇÖs civil engineer father, Armour ÔÇ£BenÔÇØ McCrea, to develop real estate along a fairly well defined set of principles: its apartments and commercial properties are realized in an integrated manner, with Armour actively implementing and organizing the design, construction and project management, retaining full ownership and property management thereafter. It has never disposed of any of the assets it has developed, which is unusually disciplined in light of the property boom of recent years. The company aims for the highest quality services and design the market will bear in the belief that such assets will appreciate faster than the general market.The other salient characteristic established by Ben McCrea and upheld by the organization today is the ÔÇ£sense of placeÔÇØ that appreciates that buildings should be rooted in the historical and physical community they serve, and this is certainly an important consideration in Halifax. You might think that an office block has much the same design parameters wherever in the world it happens to be. Yet ArmourÔÇÖs newest project, the Park Place V office tower, ÔÇ£belongsÔÇØ at so many levels to its environment that ÔÇ£sense of placeÔÇØ begins to take on a new meaning. ÔÇ£Our concept of ÔÇÿplaceÔÇÖ means much more than just the design of the local built environment. For example, the local trade contractors who are involved and the people who will use the building all have a stake in the way it impacts the community,ÔÇØ Stuart McCrea, ArmourÔÇÖs director of leasing and marketing, says. Park Place V (as the Roman numeral implies) is part of a larger commercial campus that has been progressively built by Armour since 1991 at the City of Lakes Business Park, which is part of the Burnside Business Park, the most successful commercial complex in Atlantic Canada, employing over 18,000 people. When itÔÇÖs completed in January 2009 this building will stand alongside Park Place I, II, III and IV and the Park Place Ramada Plaza Hotel, all constructed and managed by Armour Group. ItÔÇÖs an ideal location for organizations that donÔÇÖt need to be in downtown Halifax because of its proximity to local parks, lakes, trails and residential areas, all considerations that feed into the sense of place.So whatÔÇÖs special about Park Place V? To appreciate that you have to look at the extended project, which has incorporated newer and more innovative design elements as it progressed, like Park Place IIIÔÇÖs airy central atrium with vaulted ceiling made of Douglas fir beams. If ÔÇ£environmentÔÇØ is just a fancy word for ÔÇ£place,ÔÇØ then the world has finally caught up with Armour Group, because this building is going to be the first and largest multi-tenant office building in Atlantic Canada to be built to LEED standards, which promote ÔÇ£greenÔÇØ design. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a holistic approach to building that delivers a major reduction in the negative environmental impacts associated with traditional buildings,ÔÇØ says McCrea.One of the objectives of LEED is to promote energy and water efficiency, thus cutting the cost of maintaining and operating the building, and it delivers other benefits as well. ÔÇ£ThereÔÇÖs a lot of pressure on businesses these days to reduce their carbon footprint, and people want to see the evidence of that,ÔÇØ says Stuart. ÔÇ£One way they can do that is by occupying sustainable premises. A building like this is attractive to tenants who want state-of-the-art accommodation that also demonstrates they care about the issues that are important to society and the people they employ.ÔÇØ This is far from being altruism or window dressing. Many studies, Stuart points out, have reported that people working in green buildings can be as much as 16 percent more productive and demonstrate high levels of job satisfaction. They are less likely to be out sick, and staff turnover is lower too. ÔÇ£Low-emission materials and services are essential, but the way the space is laid out plays its part too, even the view from the windows and the design of the furniture, not to mention peopleÔÇÖs awareness of how their building uses sustainable features like waterless urinals and recycle management.ÔÇØAll these are important considerations for Park Place VÔÇÖs principal occupant, the $3 billion health insurance group Medavie Blue Cross, whose Building Healthy Communities partnership program fits neatly with ArmourÔÇÖs sustainable philosophy. The bottom line is that Park Place V is expected to consume 40 percent less water than a traditional building, and will outperform by at least the same margin the Model National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings (MNECB) standard for energy use.In Canada LEED is administered by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), which was involved from the earliest planning stages of Park Place V in 2007. Computer modeling was employed at that stage so that the end users could see exactly what they would be getting, and to make sure there would be no costly errors to be put right later. And during construction every phase was supervised by a LEED accredited professional to make sure that the detailed provisions of the system were observed. For example, all the hardcore left over from construction had to be recycled, being crushed on site and used to make the car parks. A similar approach was taken with the water and plastic materials. ÔÇ£The challenge is to cut the quantity of waste that goes to landfill of course, but also to use recycled rather than virgin material wherever possible, audit the transportation miles for those materials and source more of them locally. LEED points are awarded for all these things.ÔÇØPoints are also given for ÔÇ£softÔÇØ design elements such as maximizing daylight, achieving high levels of insulation, and avoiding coatings and plastic surfaces that give off harmful gases. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre beginning to realize that the ÔÇÿbrand newÔÇÖ smell that you used to associate with getting into a new car or a building for the first time isnÔÇÖt so wonderful after all,ÔÇØ says McCrea. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs caused by chemicals and volatile organic compounds [VOCs] that can be given off by carpets or office furnishings, and it can cause breathing problems.ÔÇØ The positive effect, then, of a green building on productivity can be physical as well as psychological.The building is going to be heated exclusively by natural gas burned in pulse-fired boilers. That might not count as innovative in other parts of North America, but in Nova Scotia, which has traditionally depended heavily on oil, it definitely qualifies for LEED points, and these boilers run at 90 percent efficiency, which is about as high as modern technology can achieve. ItÔÇÖs a ÔÇ£smartÔÇØ building too, with energy-efficient lighting fixtures controlled by occupancy sensors and an advanced Building Automated System (BAS) that constantly monitors and adjusts the amount of fresh air being provided.When Medavie Blue Cross and the other tenants start to move in their furniture in January 2009, the Armour Group will be justly proud. ÔÇ£I really hope this building will stand as a benchmark for future sustainable development,ÔÇØ says Stuart. ÔÇ£Being at the leading edge of sustainable construction has been a steep learning curve for us in all our departments: development, construction and property management. But I really think that all future Armour projects, whether they go forward for certification or not, will be treated as LEED buildings.ÔÇØ┬á