Athletic apparel retailer Lululemon plans to expand its corporate footprint in downtown Vancouver after signing one of the city's biggest office leases in years.
The retailer plans to fully occupy a 289,557-square-foot building at 725 Granville St. being vacated by tech giant Microsoft, a company spokesperson told CoStar News.
"Lululemon was founded in Vancouver, and we are proud the city is home to our global headquarters and the majority of our corporate employees,” the spokesperson said in an email. “As we continue to grow, we are excited to share that we are further expanding in the city and have secured nearly 300,000 square feet of additional office space" in the Pacific Centre office building.
The deal represents one of largest leases of the past four years signed in greater Vancouver and fills what would have been a large vacancy left by Microsoft, CoStar data shows.
Microsoft has vacated millions of square feet of office space in North America and shed thousands of employees as it consolidates operations at its refreshed headquarters campus in Redmond, Washington, being completed in phases. The company did not immediately reply to a request for information about its office footprint in Vancouver and when it plans to vacate Pacific Centre.
"This deal represents one of the largest availabilities in the market and was [signed] by a locally based international brand," said Paul Richter, CoStar's director of market analytics in Western Canada. "Tenants like Lululemon are key to Vancouvers office market, helping form a strong base of occupancy for an asset class that has its share of challenges — even downtown Vancouver, which is one of the tightest office submarkets in North America."
Growth mode
Lululemon occupies several buildings in and around downtown for its headquarters and other corporate operations, including about 120,000 square feet across nine floors at The Offices at Burrard Place. The company owns a 115,000-square-foot building at 1818 Cornwall Ave. in the Broadway corridor.
The retailer also owns a site at 1980 Foley St. in downtown’s Vancouver’s False Creek Flats area where the company filed plans to build a 13-storey headquarters in May 2022. The project has not moved forward, and the Lululemon spokesperson said on Monday the company has “no updates to share at this time.”
The company has also been in expansion mode in the United States, signing a deal last spring that doubled its office space at a downtown Seattle office tower.
The company spokesperson did not specific what operations it will move to the five-storey building at Pacific Centre, owned by Cadillac Fairview, one of Canada's largest owners, operators and developers of commercial property.
The new location “will add to Lululemon’s existing fleet of offices in Vancouver, and select Lululemon business functions will begin moving into Pacific Centre in the back half of 2026,” the spokesperson said in the email.
Cadillac Fairview, owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, manages over 33 million square feet at 61 properties across Canada and has assets under management of $29 billion, according to its website.
The company in May filed an application to subdivide the former Nordstrom department store at Pacific Centre, one of Canada's premier shopping centres that also has office space.