An emerging business centre in Langley is capitalizing on a prime location next to the Trans-Canada Highway and near the Golden Ears Bridge to appeal to professional service firms catering to a growing client base in the Fraser Valley.
Accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP was the pioneer. It moved into part of the Langley 200 Business Centre’s 35,000-square-foot first building in 2006. Great West Life followed in 2009 by taking space in the same building in what was the first significant relocation from the downtown core to Langley in an effort to accommodate staff living in the Fraser Valley.
The economic downturn prompted developer Mitchell Group to delay construction of the centre’s next two buildings but one is now complete and the other broke ground earlier this month.
Freedom 55 Financial, a division of London Life, held its grand opening in a new 70,000-square-foot building November 22.
Deloitte will join the centre soon. It plans to lease between 20,000 and 30,000 square feet in the centre’s 100,000-square-foot third building, for which it has bought naming rights, in mid-2013, Deloitte’s Langley office managing partner Rick Bublitz told Business in Vancouver November 20.
“It is a great location with a great landlord,” Bublitz said. “It costs more money but it makes business sense. The opportunity to grow our business is significant.”
Deloitte has operated in Langley since 1975 and employs 75 employees in the downtown part of that city. Its new office will be able to accommodate up to 110 staff with the growth coming partly because of a restructuring within the company.
Deloitte has historically operated its Langley operation separately from its downtown Vancouver head office. But Bublitz said that has changed.
“Now, Prince George, Langley and Vancouver are all part of a regional practice, which makes a lot of sense because there are synergies across all the services we provide.”
Deloitte’s hiring spree at its Langley office also stems from a rise in the number of qualified professionals and clients who now live south of the Fraser and who Bublitz said are tired of the lengthy commute downtown.
“Every couple of months there is a new individual saying, ‘I live around the corner and have to drive to Vancouver for work.’ It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Bublitz said.
Freedom 55 Financial, like Deloitte, primarily services customers in Surrey, Langley and Abbotsford. Its move from Surrey to the new Langley 200 Business Centre is because of tremendous population growth in the Fraser Valley, said Les Zacharias, who is regional director of the company’s Fraser Valley regional office.
“Centralization is key,” he told BIV. “We moved to Langley to be more centralized in the Fraser Valley as we serve customers from Hope to Burnaby.”
The cluster of professional service firms at the centre is a convenience for customers who use different firms for different professional services.
Independence regulations frequently require different accounting firms to do different work for the same client so firms regularly refer clients to each other.
Auto injury lawyers Lacrois Mathers’ head office is in the Langley 200 Business Centre, and more law firms are likely to follow.
Cushman Wakefield leasing agent Andrew Laurie told BIV that he is negotiating with a second law firm that wants to move its Langley office to the Langley 200 Business Centre.
“Larger professional service firms are realizing the need for satellite offices in a central location and that’s been identified as this business centre,” he said.
But not all professional service firms are moving to the centre itself. Laurie said KPMG plans to occupy 11,000 square feet of space less than one block south of the Langley 200 Business Centre in Wesgroup’s planned Gateway East development on 200th Street. •
