The TD Centre achieved the WELL Certification at the Gold level for occupant wellbeing and health. (Courtesy Cadillac Fairview)

Cadillac Fairview’s Toronto-Dominion Centre has bolstered its human well-being credibility with a WELL Core Certification at the Gold level for five of six towers at the office complex in downtown Toronto.

The WELL Core Certification verifies the TD Centre’s commitment and achievement at attaining a standard of support for the well-being and health of building occupants. It encompasses concepts and features like air and water quality, nourishment, ergonomics, thermal comfort and community support.

The TD Centre hosts the eponymous client TD Bank and others in a 4.3 million square feet complex of six towers located in the Financial District of downtown Toronto. Cadillac Fairview claims it is the largest office complex in Canada to achieve the certification.

The International WELL Building Institute determines the certifications. Cadillac Fairview and the TD Centre are no strangers to the institute. The relationship started in 2015 when the TD Centre initiated a WELL v1 journey and earned the office complex a WELL Gold certificate on the 23rd floor at TD Centre in 2016. The TD Center later earned the WELL Health-Safety Rating in 2021.

TD Centre’s road to certification

A spokesperson from Cadillac Fairview told SustainableBiz via email that the process for achieving the WELL Core Certification started when TD Centre enrolled in the WELL Portfolio Pilot in 2019 as one of the early adopters of the new ‘Portfolio approach’, which was designed to support owners in certifying multiple properties simultaneously.

After a gap analysis in 2019 to comprehend what would be necessary to pursue a WELL Certification under the v2 WELL Building Standard, TD Centre underwent the certification process in early 2020.

The journey to certification involved collaboration between Cadillac Fairview and a bevy of consultants ranging from Pinchin Ltd for performance testing, HH Angus as the base building engineers, Aercoustics as the acoustical engineers and Gabriel Mackinnon serving as the lighting designers.

However, not all of TD Centre’s six jet-black towers are certified yet. Five of the towers have achieved WELL Core Certification at Gold level, while the sixth is at the WELL Precertification status, as it is under “revitalization.”

As for vacancy, the spokesperson said Cadillac Fairview is in a “fortunate position in that leased occupancy for our office portfolio has remained stable throughout the pandemic.” However, there is a need for space from growing industries like technology that emphasize collaboration and on-site presence.

Besides occupant well-being, Cadillac Fairview also committed to environmental sustainability. The commercial real estate manager has set a goal of net-zero emissions for its real estate portfolio before 2050, with the interim goal of a 35 per cent reduction of its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 against a 2017 baseline.

The TD Centre reported that it has made a 33 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the past five years. Its notable sustainability features include switching out 55,000 lights for LED technology, utilizing Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling system, installing electric vehicle charging stations and achieving a litany of building standards like BOMA BEST Gold or Platinum and LEED Platinum.