A Richmond landfill development was recently recognized for its innovative brownfield redevelopment.
The Richmond Industrial Centre, a development by Montrose Properties, was awarded the Brownie Award for Best Overall Development, serving as an example of successful brownfield rehabilitation by converting a portion of a landfill into an industrial warehouse park.
The 25th Brownie awards ceremony was held in Toronto on Nov. 18.
Montrose Properties president and CEO Kenneth Low, expressed his gratitude to the Canadian Brownfield Network for recognizing their efforts.
“We're incredibly proud of this development that we've built here,” Low told the Richmond News. “We think it's going to be a very significant economic contributor to the region. We look forward to finding more high-quality tenants, like we currently have, to build up the rest of the park.”
Not only was the project recognized economically for turning the site into a job generator that contributes to the local economy, but also for the environmental and engineering challenges it had to overcome – one of the major ones being landfill gas systems.
“There's a breakdown of the organic material that's buried underneath,” said Low. “So wood and other products like that… we have to have systems that can capture that gas.”
The Montrose industrial centre's underground is filled with horizontal pipes that vacuum and capture the released gases, burning the methane and preventing it from escaping and exacerbating greenhouse gas effects. This method is better than just releasing the gas, said Low.
He added the site is currently working with FortisBC to improve the quality of these captured gases and turn them into renewable natural gas that can be used in a next phase.
Another environmental challenge was dealing with leachate, whereby rainfall soaks into the ground and picks up materials from buried metals.
‘“Those were the two main issues that we had to deal with together with our consultants that really got the Ministry of Environment supporting our project,” said Low.
“We’re really pleased to have been recognized for that effort,” he added, recognizing the support and partnership with the City of Richmond, the Ministry of Environment, consultants and engineers.
Founded by the Canadian Urban Institute in 2001, the Brownie Awards recognize innovative development projects that rehabilitate contaminated or underdeveloped sites across the country.
Twelve buildings planned for former landfill
Located in East Richmond, the Richmond Industrial Centre is the largest business park in the history of Metro Vancouver to be developed and retained by a single owner, according to a Montrose brochure.
There are currently four constructed and leased buildings at the park, with eight more to be built in the future on a built-to-suit basis and depending on demand, said Low.
Tenants in the first four buildings are Coca-Cola Bottling, Canadian Tire, Worldpac and Wayfair.
“It's been a really strong market,” he said. “The overall industrial market is something like three per cent vacancy, which is really strong… it's been as low as sub-one per cent, so there's not a lot of space available.”
The region will increasingly require more industrial space, with one of Richmond’s prime economic drivers being the airport and the ports, added Low.
Once finished, the complex will provide three million square feet for lease and generate roughly 4,800 jobs, depending on the level automation.
The site where the industrial centre sits was a construction and demolition debris landfill operated by Ecowaste Industries Ltd. – currently a Montrose subsidiary.
In 2010, work began to turn the site into an industrial park, with construction of the first 200,000-square-foot building beginning in late 2019 and completed in 11 months.
Ecowaste's proposed recycling facility
In addition to constructing the remaining eight buildings in the future, there have also been talks of Ecowaste planning to build a $50 million recycling facility near the industrial centre.
In March 2023, the province pulled Ecowaste’s nearby 150-acre landfill property out of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), potentially facilitating the construction of the facility – this was done even after city council rejected the idea.
When asked about the state of the project, Low stated the company has been working through the time-consuming permitting process.
“We would love to make that investment in increasing the recycling, but it takes some time. It's also a big cost,” he said, “The primary focus of what we've got here is on the Montrose side.”
Ecowaste buries about 200,000 tons of construction waste every year. This is after 33 per cent of the material coming to the landfill has been recycled.
Vice-president of recycling and waste services Christian Dietrich told the Richmond News last year he estimates it could recycle double the amount if the recycling facility was built.
The province’s decision to pull the landfill out of the ALR received mixed responses, with some people like former Coun. Harold Steves saying this decision would “open the floodgates” and more farmland would be lost.
However, others like then-MLA Aman Singh supported the province’s decision by saying it “makes absolute sense,” as the decision would have no impact on food production because the site has been used as landfill for decades.
“That land was taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve in recognition by the provincial government that that's an essential service to be able to support the housing industry,” said Low.
- with files from Maria Rantanen
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