10 months after announcing plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from Portland to Vancouver, Banfield Pet Hospital has broken ground on its Clark County campus.
Last week, construction crews began digging utility trenches at the site, which is located along SE Mill Plain Blvd. just east of SE 192nd Ave.
The new headquarters will consist of three buildings totaling 206,000 square feet. Design work is being performed by TVA Architects of Portland and the general contractor on the project is Skanska USA.
“The overall goal is to develop a campus that enables collaborative working for Banfield Pet Hospital in a building that’s designed to fit happily within the Northwest landscape,” said James Baxter, Banfield senior manager and project lead on the corporate relocation.
Design elements meant to give the campus buildings a Northwest feel include masonry and coloring similar to OHSU and wood accents – real and composite– on the buildings’ interior and exterior. Indigenous plants will be used in landscaping the 17-and-a-half-acre campus.
“We want it to be sustainable,” said Baxter. “The whole thing is about dropping a functional workspace into Vancouver that fits and looks like it belongs from day one.”
The company has yet to finalize interior layouts of the buildings, but Baxter said the design will focus on the needs of Banfield’s associates. Amenities on the campus will include a fitness/aerobics suite and a half-acre dog park that can be used by the community.
“The design we’ve ended up with is three buildings that are connected, which means people will be free to move around,” he said. “It will be much more of a collaborative workplace.”
When asked about collaboration between the company and officials at the city of Vancouver, Baxter, who has worked on a number of development projects around the world for Mars Incorporated (Banfield’s parent company), offered high praise.
“I can say that it has been a 10 out of 10; absolutely fantastic,” he said. “We’ve had huge support from the mayor and I know that when we’ve gone to the city of Vancouver for permit issues, we appear to be, as was promised by the city, on fast track process. Things have been going very smoothly.
“It’s going to be an exciting project to watch,” Baxter concluded. “The contractors have said they’ll be putting two cranes on site to assist in the construction, so it will be on the skyline for a while.”
Construction of the three buildings is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
