The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan’s (HOOPP) AeroCentre V building in Mississauga has won a NAIOP REX Award as Office Development of the Year. The 225,000-sq.-ft. facility is a suburban infill office development built to gold LEED standards on the site of a parking lot, so that no agricultural land had to be turned over to commercial use, and so that existing infrastructure could be leveraged, explains Lisa Lafave, HOOPP’s Senior Portfolio Manager, Real Estate.
“By building a healthier building – one that operates with a smaller energy footprint, making use of natural light and natural ventilation – we are appealing to many tenants who want the best possible workspace for their people,” says Lafave. HOOPP, she adds, has focused on healthy commercial developments in recent years, such as the Telus Tower at 25 York St. in downtown Toronto.
HOOPP is a major real estate investor with about $5 billion in holdings, and this prize is good news for the members of the HOOPP pension plan. “Successful real estate investing provides steady income, just like the defined benefit pensions we provide to our members,” says Lafave. “It’s an excellent way for us to deliver on the pension promise to our membership.”
The AeroCentre V building is a past winner of the REX Green Award of the Year, and in 2010 won the Mississauga Urban Design Awards (MUDA) Award of Excellence.