Assessing One of Canada’s ‘Greenest’ Office Buildings

The Phenix, an office building designed and occupied by architecture firm Lemay in Montreal, is one of the greenest buildings in Canada. In April 2022, it was certified as a Zero Carbon Building retrofit by the Canada Green Building Council.

The building has a LEED Platinum certification and a 3-star rating from Fitwel, a third-party healthy building certification system designed to prioritize wellness and health in the design, development and operations of buildings.

The building also won several prizes, including the Stephen R. Kellert Biophilic Design Award from the International Living Future Institute in 2019 and the Best in Building Health Award from the Center for Active Design (Fitwel) in 2020.

Rather than building a new structure from scratch, Lemay opted for an existing building that it could transform sustainably. The former storage facility built in the 1950s needed some love, but the foundation was there.

According to Lemay, “the innovations brought forth by the Phenix make it one of the most ambitious buildings in terms of sustainable development in North America.” Construction waste was recycled at 93%, there were 55% savings on energy costs related to operations and water consumption was decreased by 50%.

Since Lemay was focused on consolidating its Montreal employees in one place, a new office was required to make those plans a reality. “Lemay was attached to Montreal, particularly to the Sud-Ouest borough, so we were looking at a location in the area,” explained Hugo Lafrance, associate, sustainable strategies at Lemay.

Located at 3500 Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal, the Phenix comprises 8,000 square feet (743 square meters) of offices across three floors.

The location is strategic for Lemay, since the building is located a stone’s throw from Lionel-Groulx metro station, which links two metro lines. It is also situated next to a bicycle path that goes through Parc du Premier-Chemin-de-Fer, to encourage active transportation.

“The location ticked a lot of our boxes; urban context, accessible, an existing building with an ecological potential… I would say that these were the core ideas,” said Lafrance.

The building houses about 350 professionals from many disciplines, including urban planning, architecture, graphic design and landscape architecture. Elema, a firm of structural engineers who work closely with Lemay, is also a tenant in the building.

“The identification and the buildout of the office served as a base for the development of our sustainable development approach, that we now call ‘Net Positive’,” explained Lafrance.

The Net Positive approach by Lemay, that the company now applies to all projects, focuses on three main spheres of intervention: health, environment and carbon.

The Phenix was thus built with these criteria in mind. To support good health, the building offers abundant natural light, a gym, plants and operable windows, among other attributes. “Workplaces are not just about furniture, they are important levers for action and behavior changes, for health potential, for making people move and for creating interactions,” underlined Lafrance.

“Buildings need to have better indoor air quality. It does not happen by magic — there are technical interventions that allow one to manage these kinds of characteristics.”

To further mitigate negative environmental impacts, Lemay added items such as four electric recharging stations, 60 bicycle racks, recycling and composting bins and beehives. Biophilia is another important criteria, with features like outdoor spaces and plant walls.

Carbon control is the third fundamental element of Lemay’s approach. Renovating an existing building, instead of building a new one, “has prevented significant carbon emissions,” according to the firm’s Net Positive report.

“One of the things that we observed, while continuing to learn about the topic, is that buildings are an important lever of influence in public health, in biodiversity and in the fight against climate change,” said Lafrance.

The building’s renovations were divided into four distinct phases. “Phase one, during the first year, was essentially about decontaminating the building, removing asbestos, scraping, and getting back to the base building,” explained Lafrance.

Since Lemay’s office lease in Griffintown was nearing expiration, the objective of the second phase of renovations was to build out the first floor of the building so that the first wave of 150 employees could move in quickly. Then, the third phase was a repeat of the second one. “Once the first team moved in, it was literally a rehearsal for the second and third floor,” said Lafrance.

Lemay was looking for a mix of open spaces, allocated and non-allocated spaces, conference rooms of different sizes and common areas.

Some elements from the original design were kept, such as the concrete columns. “We cleaned them, but we didn’t paint them since we wanted to keep some of the original patina from the building,” said Lafrance.

The fourth and last phase of renovations involved decontamination and landscaping of the outdoor site. The former loading dock was demineralized to make it an urban park.

“Another point in this whole net positive idea was about leaving the site in a better state then when we found it, which is also one of the fundamental pillars of regenerative design,” said Lafrance.

For the last year of renovations, energy systems also had to be completed. Lemay had a 5-year plan to finalize the power transition of the building, which was formerly heated with natural gas, to transition to a completely electrical system, which is still being finalized.

The refurbishment work began at the beginning of 2016, and after a few delays due to the pandemic, finished in December 2020. However, “it’s never really over,” according to Lafrance because operating services need to be fine-tuned regularly.

Lemay and real estate developer Groupe Mach are the co-owners of the building. “Groupe Mach is responsible for operations, so they supported us since the beginning with regard to development and operations,” said Lafrance.

Other collaborators include Dupras Ledoux for mechanical and electrical engineering, Martin Roy et Associés for renewable energy systems and Elema for structural engineering.

The transformation inspired the name Phenix, which was also chosen because there was already a mural representing a phoenix on the outside wall of the building. “There was this whole idea that the building was 60 years old, just like Lemay, and we wanted to give a second life of 60 more years to the building. The phoenix embodied this whole concept really well,” noted Lafrance.

Similar to the Lemay-designed Bonduelle offices, stairs were placed front and center at the Phenix, outshining the elevator, which is a bit hidden, according to Lafrance.

“It’s an excellent example of behavior change,” said Lafrance. “You go get a coffee and you find yourself almost having an impromptu meeting with a colleague or a client in the staircase because there is room, outdoor views and perspective.”

Besides the stairs, the offices have been designed to encourage interactions across disciplines, with many open spaces for collaboration. “The idea is that my team, sustainable strategies, is in the center of this large open zone to try and contaminate as many people as possible,” said Lafrance, laughing. Due to this collaboration between departments, innovation is easier, and many projects, such as the Phenix, are counting on the expertise of four, five, or six different disciplines.

Employees come to the office as they please since hybrid work is now the norm for Lemay. But when they are working from the office, employees appreciate the small touches at the Phenix. Hugo Lafrance, for instance, prefers the operable windows, which allow for more fresh air. “It’s not just a motionless building, there are action levers to be in control of our comfort and well-being, and it’s very appreciated,” he said.

“It is awesome to know that it is a building with excellent air quality, that is highly energy efficient, and that my employer made this tangible commitment to fighting climate change.”