While the City is experiencing tremendous growth in condominium development, developers face
challenges in including large blocks of contiguous office space in such developments.
The objective of providing IMIT grants is to encourage such mixed use development,
consistent with the Official Plan. The incentive will amount to a grant-back of 60% of the
municipal taxes paid on the office space over ten years...
Why provide incentives for office space in mixed use buildings?
The Employment Uses study showed that new office space development in Toronto has
dramatically lagged behind that in the rest of the GTA since the early 1990s. In particular
the City has seen little development of small and mid-size office buildings outside of the
downtown core. These offices are attractive for some of our key sectors such as software
systems and design, creative industries and financial services back offices. These uses
may be more price sensitive and not in need of a downtown marquee location, but still
attracted by transit options and a large base of potential employees. Blocks of office
space in mixed use buildings may meet these needs.
Many of the areas targeted for office development are designated for mixed use. This
allows for residential and retail development as well as offices; and supports single use
buildings or buildings with more than one use. The Employment Uses study indicated
that there can be challenges to mixing offices and residential uses in one building, and
that these challenges may increase building costs. The challenges include:
structural issues including column spacing and lobby and elevator design;
market cycles for offices being out of sync with those for housing or other uses;
developers specializing in one type of use, but not both residential and commercial.
