Housing up to 2,700 employees, the new RCMP E Division Headquarters is the largest federal accommodations project outside of the National Capital Region. The purpose of the facility is to consolidate 25 E Division operational units that were previously dispersed throughout Vancouver.

The seven-storey main administration building’s reinforced concrete structure employed long spans to maximize space flexibility in the open office areas. The second building in this three building campus is an emergency operations and data centre designed to withstand an earthquake and function as a stand-alone crisis centre for 72 hours. This building’s structure utilizes vertical post-tensioning cables in a self-centering system to enable the building to straighten itself following an earthquake. Building C, the exhibit and workshop building, is a concrete tilt-up structure.

Aspects that made the project a challenge included the grand size of the building footprint, the technological requirements of the individual buildings on-site, and the requirement to meet LEED^® Gold certification. The facility was purpose-built for the RCMP with many of the requirements geared to a high-security facility; however, a flexibility in the facilities was also mandated in order to satisfy relocation of departments or even different tenants. To mitigate the risk of schedule delays, the project was fast-tracked with the design and construction proceeding in tandem. Manpower on the jobsite peaked at 700 employees and specialists working together.