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“The Boot,” a distinctive L-shaped office building at the corner of Boundary Road and Kingsway, on the Burnaby side of the Vancouver-Burnaby border, is starting to look a little less uncommon.

Although the main 21-storey tower (coined Building 1) will remain intact, construction crews are dismantling the attached 12-storey podium (Building 2) that gives the unusual boot-like shape to the structure.

Removing the podium will reduce the office building’s total floor area from 687,000 square feet to 512,000 square feet. 

Tracy McRae vice-president, development of Vancouver-based Anthem Properties Group Ltd., says the company is the development’s construction manager and manager and a partner with Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd.

In addition to demolishing Building 2, Building 1 will be renovated and office tenants will be taken on after the renovation has been completed.

Geoff Deacon, Anthem’s director of construction, says, “We’re refreshing the area and the corner of Boundary and Kingsway, while not compromising the integrity of The Boot.”

He says crews are taking down each floor of the podium building one at a time.

They’re demolishing the cross-over section between Building 1 and Building 2 and detaching the expansion joints on each floor of the podium.

Demolition of the podium began in January 2025 with completion expected in April 2026.

Work has gone smoothly so far, says Deacon.

“One challenge we faced was dealing with some unforeseen conditions in the old building,” Deacon says. “The original electrical room of The Boot is underneath Building 2. So, in order to demolish it, we had to build a new electrical room in Building 1.”

The Boot office tower was built in two stages. Building 1 was constructed in 1976 and Building 2 was built in the 1990s.

The structure was built for BC Tel (British Columbia Telephone Company), before it was taken over by Telus Corporation after the merger of BC Tel, Alberta Government Telephone and Edmonton Telephones in 1999.

The Boot used to be the largest office building in Metro Vancouver, until it was surpassed by some newer and even bigger office towers in downtown Vancouver.

Site preparation work has started on the 6.6-acre property to prepare it for redevelopment, which will add five highrise residential towers immediately adjacent to the office building.

The five new residential towers will be, respectively, 31, 38, 52, 60 and 64 storeys high.

Burnaby City Council gave the green light to the project in March 2025.

Originally called Central Park Commons, its name has since then been changed to King and Park, for its location on Kingsway and across the street from Central Park.

Anthem says King and Park is “a dynamic 12-acre master planned mixed-use community in Burnaby’s Metrotown.”

It is intended to have 43,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and about 2,500 condo, market and non-market rental units as well as 500,000 square feet of office space. 

The project was taken over by Anthem from the original developer in 2024, after sale of a 50 per cent ownership interest in the development to Crestpoint Real Estate Investments.

In addition to the demolition of Building 2, the refurbishment of the facade of Building 1 and other upgrades to ensure it conforms with modern building codes and safety standards, the first phase of the project involves construction of two towers on the south side of the site, fronting Kingsway.

Connected by a podium, the structures will contain 700 market rental units as well as retail. 

The towers will be built on the approximately 40,000 square foot surface vehicle parking lot at the southeast parcel of the site.

The second phase’s three towers, the project’s tallest buildings, will be built on the site of the demolished “toe” structure.

Parking for the development will be located in an underground parkade.