Photo courtesy Pickard Chilton in association with Gibbs Gage Architects and Kendall/Heaton Associates.

This rendering shows the two towers of Calgary's Eighth Avenue Place.

Calgary's Eighth Avenue Place is the first high-rise office building in Canada to be pre-certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC's) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Core and Shell (LEED–CS) program.

Spanning nearly an entire block in Calgary's downtown financial core, the mixed-use development has been under construction since last December. Completion is scheduled for early 2011, after which the structure may well be Calgary and Canada's first Gold LEED–CS certified high-rise office building.

The development will consist of two towers, each built in separate phases. The 49-storey, 102,000-m² (1.1 million-sf) Southwest Tower will go up in Phase One, along with a two-storey podium for shops, restaurants, pedestrian movement, and parking. Phase Two will focus on the Northwest Tower at 39 storeys and an anticipated area of 76,000 m² (815,000 sf).

Project architects are Pickard Chilton Architects (New Haven, Conn.), Kendall/Heaton Associates (Houston, Texas), and Gibbs Gage Architects (Calgary).