Office Space in the region of Uptown

Right now the Uptown Centre is under construction and will add more office space to the "Uptown" area of Saanich.   So how much office space is there now in this area?

• Uptown will have 200,000 square feet of class A office space
• 3975 Carey Road - 35,000 square feet
• 3300 Douglas Road - 18,300 square feet.
• There is the former BC Assessment offices at 3350 Douglas Street with 75,000 square feet
• There is the Saanich Municipal Hall - space for 150 employees - 50,000 square feet?
• The SD 61 offices at the old Mount Tolmie School - about 25,000 square feet of space.
• There is a new building going in at Audley and Douglas - 3351 Douglas Street.   There will be about 25,000 square feet of office space.
• 3318 Oak Street - 16,000 square feet of office space
• 830 Shamrock Street - about 28,000 square feet  - recently built
• Short Street - 3000 square feet
• 4000 Seymour Place - the building with the core IT services for the provincial government - about 280,000 square feet of office space.
• Gateway Center - this offers more office space, about 20,000 square feet
• Focus Building - 57 Cadillac - about 12,000 square feet
• Other assorted office space on Cadillac - about 15,000 square
• There are other small office spaces coming in at about 100,000 square feet

This brings us in at around 1,000,000 square feet of office space in this area.   More than a 1/4 of the space is new or under construction at the moment.   This means the Uptown area will be home to about 10% of the total office space in this region.

The problem in the Uptown area is that is more or less completely unwalkable.   The offices at 4000 Seymour Place are only 350 meters from Uptown Centre, but the walking distance is more than kilometer.   As the crow flies the building at 3975 Carey Road is only 250 meters from Uptown, but walking at it is closer to 500 meters.   Saanich Municipal Hall is 250 meters away in a straight line, but 700 meters if you walk.

Walking is not great, but when it comes to driving around, the area is not designed with any real street connectivity in mind.   Each building feels like it is disconnected for all the others around it.

There is a hope that the LRT will cause the area to have more development, but given the layout the walkablity of the area, I think that is not realistic.