[fedplanner]

Is this guy for real?

Canada Square is not owned by the city,... to even suggest that it'll become office building is a far fetch,.... at best one of the Canada Square office tower would be redeveloped with matching office space and condo on top,.... a-la this 1 Eglinton proposal,.... notice, I said matching office space,... not replacement office space,.... sure the developer may match the office space - but partition them into office condo that'll easily sell out,.... but the vast majority of these office condo will never be rent/leased out, they'll be empty! Empty office space do not provide jobs,.... the office space has been matched,... but not replaced by real office space.

 

[interchange42]

Sunnyray is convinced that every new office building will be office condo, that investors will snap the condos up, but will end up with spaces they can't lease out. End of story.

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[sunnyraytoronto]

Sunnyray is convinced that every new office building will be office condo, that investors will snap the condos up, but will end up with spaces they can't lease out. End of story.

42

Kinda hard not to be convinced that way when that's exactly what I see at Tridel HullmarkCentre, Bazis EmeraldPark and starting again at 4050 Yonge,...
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...l-kirkor-architects.668/page-105#post-1064647

BTW,... It's not that the "investors" can't lease them out,.... they don't want to, these "investors" didn't buy them to lease them out.

 

[interchange42]

You did miss another two office condos under construction, one at 7 St. Thomas, one at 135 Yorkville… but office condos are not the only office buildings going up these days.

Bay Adelaide East is just wrapping up. One York and The Globe and Mail centre mid-this year. EY Tower late this year. None of the big ones go condo.

20 Wellington East is a smaller one that's not condo. Daniels Waterfront is a mid-size one under construction now. There are a pile of others looking for tenants, not owners. They are all Downtown or close by.

The recent Yonge north ones do all seem to be office condo lately, I suppose because developers believe that the office leasing market in the area is not robust enough for them to feel comfortable about owning all of the office space that the City is demanding. (We do not know yet whether or not 1 Eglinton East will be office condo, BTW. It may be. On another note, I'm not convinced that this particular development is going ahead as soon as DavPart has approval, based on the way they've not acted since getting approval down at 481 University. This may be an exercise to get zoning in place now so that they can move ahead in the future when their office tenancy situation will allow them to more easily, for example. Who knows what the market will be like when they do go ahead.)

Speaking of that office market, I'm hoping that it does heat up at Yonge and Eg once the Crosstown opens. A pile of new buildings will have opened in the area by then, and not everyone living in the area will want to fight their way up and down the Yonge line every morning and evening. With the places to eat, drink, and shop in the area, there's no reason that an office market couldn't rebound here once the area gets easier to get to again.

Regarding your contention that office condo investors are picking up the spaces just to hold them and not rent them, ?

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[sunnyraytoronto]

Yes, all those offices you mentioned are downtown or at least a stone thrown away from downtown.

Here, the Yonge & Eglinton area is in the secondary office zone like North York Centre,.... we're the ugly sisters when it comes to demand for office space.

As for hoping the office market improves for the Yonge & Eglinton area once the Eglinton Crosstown LRT opens,..... we've been hoping for the same office market improvement for the North York Centre area since the Sheppard Stubway opened 15 years ago,..... and still waiting! Likewise, I'm sure there's folks at Yonge & St.Clair that are still waiting for their office market to improve ever since their St.Clair LRT opened,.....

 

[taal]

I'd stop saying "I hope the office market improves" ... Y&C has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the entire GTAA, and Y&E, NYCC and Y&B are very close to that (but all nearly in the same predicament); There's sufficient demand - but its not a developer's market, you cannot construct a new A office building (given the cost of land / construction) and make money off it in these markets.

A lot of folks talk about the cross town improving the developer market ... it will NOT happen ... it will make 0 difference, stop and logistically think of why it would ... NYCC has 2 subway lines, sure the 2nd doesn't go anywhere ... this is not why there isn't any more office development, it's just not worth it for developers and I don't think it will be for a very long time.

If anything, the cross town will make it worse ... it'll drive up land costs further making condo developers that much more lucrative in comparison to offices and that's what will happen.


With that said, all the existing offices ... most which are nearly full ... should be maintained (they're already built and the landlords profit of the rents they can charge ... heck probably a few could afford a reno or two).

This goes back to forcing developers to build offices if they tear it down, they'll lose money, too bad for them; That's the point of zoning and land planing.

 

[Waterloo_Guy]

The City intends that the Canada Square parking garage to the south be torn down at some point and replaced with new buildings, and they're also interested in at least one of the Canada Square buildings being replaced as well: the whole double-slab thing on the west side of Yonge there is not in the long term plans for the area.

42

Do you have a source for this? I only ask because although the land is owned by the city, the two large buildings fronting Yonge are not, and I can't find a source that mentions this. I have been unable to find any indication that these two buildings are likely to be redeveloped from Build Toronto, Oxford, or the City.

Where can I find information on this?

 

[Ramako]

Do you have a source for this? I only ask because although the land is owned by the city, the two large buildings fronting Yonge are not, and I can't find a source that mentions this. I have been unable to find any indication that these two buildings are likely to be redeveloped from Build Toronto, Oxford, or the City.

Where can I find information on this?

Oxford indeed has long term plans to re-develop the south west corner of Yonge & Eglinton, but you'll just have to take my word on it as there's no online source.

 

[maestro]

I'd stop saying "I hope the office market improves" ... Y&C has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the entire GTAA, and Y&E, NYCC and Y&B are very close to that (but all nearly in the same predicament); There's sufficient demand - but its not a developer's market, you cannot construct a new A office building (given the cost of land / construction) and make money off it in these markets.

A lot of folks talk about the cross town improving the developer market ... it will NOT happen ... it will make 0 difference, stop and logistically think of why it would ... NYCC has 2 subway lines, sure the 2nd doesn't go anywhere ... this is not why there isn't any more office development, it's just not worth it for developers and I don't think it will be for a very long time.

If anything, the cross town will make it worse ... it'll drive up land costs further making condo developers that much more lucrative in comparison to offices and that's what will happen.


With that said, all the existing offices ... most which are nearly full ... should be maintained (they're already built and the landlords profit of the rents they can charge ... heck probably a few could afford a reno or two).

This goes back to forcing developers to build offices if they tear it down, they'll lose money, too bad for them; That's the point of zoning and land planing.

If condos are more lucrative than offices, well then, the low vacancy doesn't tell much of a story. There certainly are buildings with g around Toronto in which the lease rate basically covers the expenses. There's nothing left for capital expenditures. These are just owners holding on.

 

[interchange42]

Oxford indeed has long term plans to re-develop the south west corner of Yonge & Eglinton, but you'll just have to take my word on it as there's no online source.

Do you have a source for this? I only ask because although the land is owned by the city, the two large buildings fronting Yonge are not, and I can't find a source that mentions this. I have been unable to find any indication that these two buildings are likely to be redeveloped from Build Toronto, Oxford, or the City.

Where can I find information on this?

You should give this page a read, to learn the City's concept vision for the area.

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=a2d452cc66061410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

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[WislaHD]

Do you have a source for this? I only ask because although the land is owned by the city, the two large buildings fronting Yonge are not, and I can't find a source that mentions this. I have been unable to find any indication that these two buildings are likely to be redeveloped from Build Toronto, Oxford, or the City.

Where can I find information on this?

Here is the Forum Thread.

 

[Waterloo_Guy]

You should give this page a read, to learn the City's concept vision for the area.

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=a2d452cc66061410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

42

Thank you for the link. An ambitious plan, although it makes no mention at all of the two office buildings fronting Yonge.

Apart from Ramako's unconfirmed Oxford rumor, there seems to be no evidence of a planned redevelopment here. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to fit the pieces together. If these buildings were redeveloped then surely they would conform to the design guidelines in that link. But there appears to be no such plan.

 

[maestro]

It's just a concept plan. Oxford is in a position to sit on this property for decades. The plan will long forgotten.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

There's no development plan until the developer files a formal development application with City Planning. Especially when it comes to OxfordProperties (the same developer involved with Canada Square),.... OxfordProperties and OMERS or another RET sat on 4800 Yonge since early 1990s with a phase 2 office building plan,... but 4.5 years ago OxfordProperties came up with a Michael Klausmeier designed 25 storey office building for the southwest corner of Yonge & Sheppard,...
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2011/10/new-office-building-coming-4800-yonge-north-york-city-centre
Guess what, nothing was ever sent to city planning!,... not even preliminary talks,... nothing! It was all smoke and mirrors to generate interest in the property for a possible sale,... and then last year they sold the site to Menkes for a discounted $12.7 million,... who might include 2 storey of useless token office condos.

Seeing interesting action on-site, various local contacts,... I was able to predict Menkes going 50 storey condo with 5 underground parking level and public square,... before Menkes formal development application which was for 49 storey mainly condo and 6 underground parking level (difference in how site grade is defined on this sloping site) without public square.
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...enkes-arquitectonica.17877/page-3#post-980922
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...nkes-arquitectonica.17877/page-4#post-1014334
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...nkes-arquitectonica.17877/page-4#post-1048592


Looking at this 1 Eglinton site,... yes, there's a formal development application with City Planning,... but as interchange42 says it could all just be a head fake to get zoning changes for future development or increase value for site sale,.... consider this, DavPart focuses on building management,... not development.

 

[Orson]

Gosh.
And here I was, unaware that residential density necessarily equates to office density. I didn't know every single condo dweller (especially those not of working age) have an office cubicle out there waiting. I'm sure there's a by-law for that.