Construction continues on York Street office building in Toronto

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WILLIAM CONWAY/PROGRESS PHOTOGRAPHY​
 
I don't know about that. Sick Kids looks probable, as does BA2. I could see either/both of them breaking ground before this one opens its doors. I also wouldn't be surprised to see movement on the office portion of Ice by the middle of 2011 (Having the other three corners of York/Bremner built out, plus Ice itself taking shape, is going to make that a very attractive parcel of land).
 
^ The Sick Kids building is a "special purpose" building (not really an office building) and seems pretty well certain to go ahead, now that funding is in place. But I don't see BA2 or other new office buildings downtown being announced during the next few years. We have had over 3 million square feet of new downtown space finished within the last few months (BA1, RBC, and Telus), with the office component of Maple Leaf Square to be added next year. Along with 18 York, that's a lot of space to be filled up.

Cushman & Wakefield is predicting a vacancy rate of 13% by 2011 in the central city. That doesn't send a signal to anyone to start planning another new building. As Spire says, enjoy wathcing this one go up, as there won't be another one in the central city for a while.
 
I agree that this building will be the last one in a while. Toronto has a climbing vacancy rate so it would be foolish to add more now and devalue it.
What is more surprising to me is that New York City, which has a higher vacancy rate than Toronto, is about to dump millions of square footage of new office space onto their market. That can't be good for them.

Sometimes I wonder why this 26 story office building was constructed now instead of waiting for the next wave of construction and building something taller.
 
What is more surprising to me is that New York City, which has a higher vacancy rate than Toronto, is about to dump millions of square footage of new office space onto their market. That can't be good for them.
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The competition is just nuts down there although New York City is a rather special case. Even before the bust, You had new office towers, malls, and apartment buildings being built in cities with completely vacant office towers, malls, and apartments building. I remember reading the apartment vacancy for Chicago was around 10% at the height of the building boom. Compare that to Toronto where 3% is a renter's market.
 
To be fair to New York part of the overbuilding is coming from replacing the World Trade Centre. Even though they don't need the space they don't want to leave that site empty, for symbolic purposes, if nothing else.
 
Dumping new office space onto the market and devaluing the existing ones is bad for the property owners but great for other businesses and great luring new ones to the city.
 
Couldn't a higher vacancy rate be considered a good thing in the sense that encouraging lower psf rates through greater inventory might attract more corporate business to the core and help Toronto compete with the massive cheaper suburban business centres?
 
I've heard of some companies shifting people from the 905 offices to downtown to fill excess space instead of subletting it out. Not sure what to make of it but, it sounds good to me.


A higher vacancy rate also encourages investment in older building stock and other upgrades like FCP.
 
yes.

Tewder said:
Couldn't a higher vacancy rate be considered a good thing in the sense that encouraging lower psf rates through greater inventory might attract more corporate business to the core and help Toronto compete with the massive cheaper suburban business centres?
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Not to sure about that actually ...

Just take a look at recent history, in the 90's when vacancies were in the 14% range and rents likely at some lower level as well, did we see shift from the 904 to the 416 ... I don't think so.

There other issue at play when it comes to that.

The question is when the businesses that need to be downtown start employing more people again.
 
A friend of mine did in '97, and since then it's been 708, 636, 613, 636, 505, 352, and now 303.

Now back to 18 York...
 
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