Westway Park In Bedford Expanding With Six-Storey Office Tower
HALIFAX – Westway Park, located in West Bedford, will be expanding with a new six-story office tower, set to be completed in the summer of 2022. The new office space is 105,000 square feet in size and will cost $25-million for The Armour Group to develop.
Scott McCrea, President and CEO of The Armour Group, says growth at Westway is increasing as the current office towers on the four-tower, 350,000 square-foot, site are fully booked. It also helps that West Bedford has a rapidly rising population.
“Our expansion of the office space out there is accelerating faster than we would have expected. We’re full in all of our buildings,” said McCrea.
“It’s surrounded by the fastest-growing area in Atlantic Canada and tens of thousands of residential homes and apartments now all surround this site.”
There is so much demand for new office space that, even though construction was just announced officially this summer, 20 percent is already leased. McCrea expected one-third of the space to be leased by later this summer.
The Armour Group plans to keep developing the area even after this office tower is built. Over the next decade or so, they hope to add more office, commercial, and residential space to Westway Park.
“Over time we expect to add another half-a-million square feet of office space and several hotels, as well as retail and, subject to the development agreement, we hope to do residential as well,” said McCrea.
The Armour Group’s goal is to create an “urban centre within a suburban node.” In other words, if you live out in the West Bedford area, you can live in your suburb while being treated to urban services.
“We’re trying to create a feeling that you’re not really in the suburbs, you’re actually in an urban community. So that means everything from coffee shops to office buildings to hotels, to maybe even seniors’ care,” said McCrea.
The office space at Westway Park isn’t the old school type of structure you might see in the Movie “Office Space.” Rather than something drab and dreary, the offices have a “right to light” philosophy. The new tower will also have a two-story garden where people can hang out and even have casual meetings.
“Buildings are designed to flood interior space with light and minimize energy consumption,” states a press release from The Armour Group. “Each building is strategically oriented to maximize solar heating in the winter and minimize summer heat gain in the summer, reducing operating costs.”
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