Downtown Vancouver Broadway building earns environmental certification

One of Vancouver’s tallest buildings, the 10-story 805 Broadway building, earned its LEED Gold certification in May while it searches for a new tenant for its renovated ground-floor retail space.

Earning the LEED Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council meant upgrading parts of the building to make it more environmentally friendly and resource efficient. That included upgrading its water efficiency by installing new toilets and having its occupants access alternative transportations options, including the RYD program.

RYD, a transportation company under the same ownership as LSW Architects in Vancouver, contracts with owners of parking lots, and offers electric vehicle transportation to the workplaces and back. Most of the 805 Broadway building is occupied by ZoomInfo, a business-to-business data marketing company, and many of its workers use the RYD service.

Buildings can earn the LEED Gold status through a point system for such improvements.

“We had a tremendous point increase because of the RYD system,” said Jonathan McCall, vice president of asset management for building owner Schlesinger Co.

Casey Wyckoff, founder and co-owner of RYD, said that before the pandemic, about 60 to 80 workers in the building used its electric-vehicle shuttle service. While the pandemic restrictions caused RYD to shut down temporarily, Wyckoff plans to start ramping services back up in July with an updated app.

“Within the next few weeks, you’ll start to see the vehicles out and about,” he said.

Tenant demand

Schlesinger Co. built the building in 1982 along with Pacific Telecom. Schlesinger Co. bought out its partner in 2007.

“Downtown Vancouver has real momentum right now in terms of new construction, and with tenant demand,” McCall said in a statement. “We are receiving inquiries from tenants in Portland looking to expand into Vancouver. Reinvesting in existing buildings is a cost-effective alternative to new construction, allowing us to offer competitive lease rates to existing and potential tenants.”

A 15,000-square-foot ground-floor space that was renovated early last year is seeking a tenant.

“It’s really an exciting space for an office tenant or retail,” he said. “You could imagine an art gallery, restaurant or brewpub.” Tamara Fuller, senior vice president of Capacity Commercial Group, the leasing agent for the building, said that one company has a pending proposal for the space. The going rate is about $27 to $30 per square foot.

“We’ve seen interest and have traded paper on all of the vacancy throughout the last year,” she wrote in an email to The Columbian.

The pandemic hasn’t disrupted the market for office space, and it’s “stayed stable and is continuing to stay strong. Even the few subleases that hit the market were sublet in a short period of time,” she wrote.

This story was updated to accurately state the leasing agent for the building.