Impactful, amazing, jewel, milestone, vibrant, striking, sleek, futuristic and tech-savvy.
All were words thrown around Thursday afternoon at the grand opening of the angular and glassy 17-storey The Block tower -- downtown Kelowna's first and only office highrise.
"Of all the developments Mission Group has done, Bernard Block is the most impactful yet," said Luke Turri, the president of Mission Group, which developed Bernard Block.
"Downtown is on the rise. And we're part of this new energy with these condominium homes and this office space."
Bernard Block is the name given to the development that covers an entire city block bordered by downtown's main street, Bernard Avenue, St. Paul Street and Bertram Street.
Collectively, Bernard Block is already-occupied 25-storey, 178-unit Brooklyn condo at 1471 St. Paul St.; the nearly complete 34-storey, 257-unit Bertram condo at 560 Bernard Ave.; and the newly opened 17-storey The Block office tower at 1499 St. Paul St.
The Block and Bertram share a five-level podium that hides a parkade clad in decorative design elements resembling water reeds (a nod to its location close to Okanagan Lake) and a woven basket (a nod to the Indigenous practical craft).
At the high-profile corner of Bernard and St. Paul there's a four-level waterfall of replica wooden flumes, a nod to when such irrigation was used in pioneering Okanagan agriculture.
While The Block recognizes the past, it also boldly surges into the future.
The office tower's design is modern glassy with a mid-axis split for half of the building to slant west and the other half east.
"We didn't want a straight up-and-down rectangle," said Turri.
"We wanted a new angle for downtown. The slopes of the building beckon you to come up or down Bernard Avenue toward it."
Mayor Tom Dyas was on hand to help cut the ribbon along with Mission Group CEO Jonathan Friesen and Mark Hannah, executive managing director of Vancouver-based Nicola Wealth Real Estate, which is Mission Group's partner for the development.
"The Block is a milestone in the evolution of downtown Kelowna," said the mayor.
'It's a vibrant part of Kelowna's transformation to a more urban and dynamic centre, not just for economic development, but for the well being of all people that live and work and enjoy downtown."
Above the five-storey parkade, there's 11 floors and 110,000 square feet of offices and then a 17th storey rooftop with a huge boardroom and outdoor relaxation and reception space for all tenants and their employees.
The windows provide natural light to all the office space and the windows have a tint technology that sees them darken or lighten depending on sun exposure, thus eliminating the need for any shades or curtains.
The views, not just from the rooftop, from all floors stretch over either downtown or Okanagan Lake vistas.
The Block is currently 65% leased, which is considered pretty good for a newly opened office tower in these post-COVID tough times of businesses slowly returning to in-office work.
The Block's anchor tenant is Beem (formerly Interior Savings Credit Union) which is taking office space on the entire 11th and 12th floors and the prime storefront space at the corner of Bernard Avenue and St. Paul Street for a credit union branch that will be the new prototype for Beem.
The 6th floor's interior and outdoor space will be ProducKIDvity daycare.
Colliers commercial real estate services and Lloyd Sadd Insurance are each taking half of the 7th floor.
Summitt Commercial Insurance has the entire 9th floor.
And Mission Group recently moved its headquarters onto the 16th floor.
The company has made it a showpiece of what a modern highrise office should be, maximizing natural light for all who work there, boardrooms with views of the lake, open-concept workstations with views south and east, a lunchroom, called The Cafe, with lake views, a meditation room, phone booths for private conversations and an art installation in the lobby of Okanagan Lake and Kelowna's street grid radiating from it.
Mission Group moved from one office tower to another to create its new headquarters.
It was previously on the 10 floor of the 18-storey Landmark 6, which is part of the Landmark District, which includes Kelowna's first office highrises, including the 12-storey Landmark 2 and the city's tallest office tower -- 23-storey Landmark 7.
Mission Group is a real Kelowna highrise advocate.
It is also currently developing the three-tower Aqua complex on the lake just south of the Hotel Eldorado and has plans for three other highrises -- a condo/rental apartment combination at 346 Lawrence Ave., a 19-storey rental apartment building at 1333 Bertram St. and a 40-storey rental apartment tower beside the under-construction UBC Okanagan vertical campus that will rise 41 storeys (to be Kelowna's tallest) at the corner of Doyle Avenue and St. Paul Street.
Kelowna's skyline is ever-changing with 25 towers of 10 storeys or more already built and occupied and at least another 25 under construction or planned.
