2021 - Vancouver - X MEC Headquaters

            Jul 31 2021
The former MEC headquarters building in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats will become a major expansion office of Electronic Arts (EA).

The global video gaming giant has leased the entire four-storey, 120,000 sq ft office building at 1077 Great Northern Way.

MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) previous headquarters building on Great Northern Way in Vancouver is for lease. 

MEC constructed its four-storey, 112,000-sq-ft office in 2014.  The company crashed in 2020. 

MEC had already downsized the headquarters to smaller digs, putting the fancy building up for sale.  April 2021 it sold for $103 million to PCI Developments and Low Tide Properties.

The building was Vancouver’s first modern large-scale mass timber office building with a LEED Platinum green building certification.  

Overall, the structure is 70% more energy efficient than a conventional office building.

October 2020, deep in debt and with rising losses, MEC filed for creditor protection and announced sale of the business to U.S.-based private investment firm Kingswood Capital Management.

MEC started in 1971 with six members of the Varsity Outdoors Club at the University of B.C and grew to over five million members across Canada.

“It lost its way five-to-10 years ago,” said Jim Byers, MEC’s first manager. “It changed its brand — walked away from a 40-year brand and changed its branding, changed its pricing policy, changed its inventory policy and pissed away its profits on fancy new buildings.”

Challenges faced by MEC whacked a lot of legacy retailers and brands.   The growing trend toward online sales and arrival of international retailers in Canada probably contributed to the downfall.

For many organizations, they were too slow in adapting to a changing retail scene … and then COVID hit.  COVID didn’t cause any of the problems, what COVID did was shrink the timeline dramatically.

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Taken in: Canada / British Columbia / Vancouver / Mount Pleasant (show map)

Taken on: May 22, 2021

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Sets appears in: • 2021 - Vancouver BC

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Camera: Nikon D750, f/11.0, 1/2500 sec, 36mm, ISO 1250 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D750
Lens:	AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	1/2500 sec
Focal Length:	36mm
ISO:	1250
Exposure Bias:	+1/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Other
White Balance:	Auto
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Luminar AI
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