heatscore said:
Bay Adelaide West I believe.
Click to expand...

- during the late 80's when the original Bay Adelaide Centre was proposed and started the office vacancy rate was 10%+ in downtown Toronto
- the original Bay Adelaide Centre was to be built by teh real-estate arm of HBC + Trizec Hahn, which had recently acquired Bramalea Corporation,
- During the 1980's Bramalea acquired billions of dollars of debt as it consolidated a giant real-estate portfolio; it went brankrupt in the early 90's due to the recession and decline in property prices

The bottom line is that the B/A Centre's original failure was the cause of a confluence of events (namely high vacancy rates, recession, as well as the financial weakening of its developer caused by over-expansion and acquisition). It is possible that another developer, one that wasn't saddled with the Bramalea investment, would have completed the original B/A Tower given its long-term prospects. I don't think Cadillac Fairview is in the same boat, given its ownership structure.
 
heatscore said:
Bay Adelaide West I believe.
Click to expand...
Not West, as "the stump" was fr a tower in the middle of the site. By the time they were ready to go again, the plan had changed to east and west towers, and the stump in the middle was torn out.

42
 
With Downtown Toronto office vacancy rates being at their lowest @ 3.1%
... i wouldn't be a bit surprised to see The Hub break ground upon approval and Commerce Court-3 in the next year:)
 
The Hub will probably break ground next year but I think CC3 will take some time, 3-5 years. :)
 
Automation Gallery said:
With Downtown Toronto office vacancy rates being at their lowest @ 3.1%
... i wouldn't be a bit surprised to see The Hub break ground upon approval and Commerce Court-3 in the next year:)
Click to expand...

Now there's some optimism :) Feels very refreshing to read some upbeat forecasts to balance out all the Negative Nancy's of this forum
 
How about a more reasonable forecast? The sky is not currently falling. The sky will fall at some point, in the undetermined future.

As the sky has not fallen lately; it seems a bit more likely that the sky may fall a bit sooner than it would have had we discussed this 5 years ago.

But we don't know when the sky will fall; and there is no evidence as yet that it will anytime soon.

Then again, there was relatively little warning the last time, except for mounting indebtedness, which is currently an issue.

When the sky falls, the consequences are not yet determinable. One can only project variants of probabiity.

In other words..........some concern is reasonable, yet there is no immediate cause for alarm.

Breathe.

Don't dismiss worries, don't froth them either.

Moving on. LOL
 
pw20 said:
- during the late 80's when the original Bay Adelaide Centre was proposed and started the office vacancy rate was 10%+ in downtown Toronto
- the original Bay Adelaide Centre was to be built by the real-estate arm of HBC + Trizec Hahn, which had recently acquired Bramalea Corporation,
- During the 1980's Bramalea acquired billions of dollars of debt as it consolidated a giant real-estate portfolio; it went brankrupt in the early 90's due to the recession and decline in property prices

The bottom line is that the B/A Centre's original failure was the cause of a confluence of events (namely high vacancy rates, recession, as well as the financial weakening of its developer caused by over-expansion and acquisition). It is possible that another developer, one that wasn't saddled with the Bramalea investment, would have completed the original B/A Tower given its long-term prospects. I don't think Cadillac Fairview is in the same boat, given its ownership structure.
Click to expand...

To add some further context to pw20's post regarding the circumstances of the demise of the original Bay Adelaide Centre in the 1990's, there have been other changes to the business environment in Toronto over the past twenty years in addition to the project specific items cited above.

  • In the 1980's and 1990's there was a material migration of businesses out to the suburbs, Mississauga and Markham in particular - TD and Bell Canada to the Creekside area, IBM to two large buildings on the north side of Steeles in Markham, etc. etc. The migration was driven in part by much lower commercial property taxes than on downtown Toronto commercial office space, along with the attraction for employees of not having to commute into the City. Now the differential in commercial property tax rates between the City and the suburbs is much reduced, traffic congestion in the car dependent suburbs has become worse, a much greater proportion of the younger work force now lives in the downtown areas, has resulted in a reverse migration, with businesses are choosing to locate in the City to take advantage of these benefits

  • The overall economy in Toronto has broadened - Toronto has become a growing technology hub, the finance and fintech sectors have continued their growth, film, media and communications industries are strong, the education sector, particularly at the colleges and universities level, is booming, with a significant influx of international students who pay the full rate for tuition, along with their associated accommodation and living expenses, and so on.

  • Political issues in both the United States and Great Britain have restricted their ability to bring in talented workers, resulting in Toronto becoming a destination of choice for international companies setting up technology and research facilities needing skilled immigrants.

  • The open and accepting people environment here, with all its multicultural dimensions, has enhanced Toronto as destination of choice both people and businesses.

​
The Toronto area is undergoing a period of sustained population growth. The monthly Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey now has much greater granularity in its data, and among other statistics, now shows the year over year population growth for the Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto census metropolitan areas (CMA's). For the past while, the Toronto CMA has been experiencing a year over year population growth of around 135,000 - far above the population growth in either Vancouver or Montreal. The data is available in the Statistics Canada daily release web site at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dai-quo/index-eng.htm

The specific table showing the Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto data for December 2018 (published on Friday, January 4) is in Table 8 at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190104/t008a-eng.htm

So while I would by no means take the position that Toronto will not experience another cyclical slowdown - one will happen sooner or later - my feeling is that there are sufficient contextual differences between the present conditions and those which existed twenty to thirty years ago, that direct comparisons between then and now, leading to conclusions that the sky is about to fall in on the downtown property market, both commercial and residential, are not particularly appropriate or necessarily correct.
​
 
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AHK said:
To add some further context to pw20's post regarding the circumstances of the demise of the original Bay Adelaide Centre in the 1990's there have been other changes to the business environment in Toronto over the past twenty years in addition to the project specific items cited above.

  • In the 1980's and 1990's there was a material migration of businesses out to the suburbs, Mississauga and Markham in particular - TD and Bell Canada to the Creekside area, IBM to two large buildings on the north side of Steeles in Markham, etc. etc. The migration was driven in part by much lower commercial property taxes than on downtown Toronto commercial office space, along with the attraction for employees of not having to commute into the City. Now the differential in commercial property tax rates between the City and the suburbs is much reduced, traffic congestion in the car dependent suburbs has become worse, a much greater proportion of the younger work force now lives in the downtown areas, has resulted in a reverse migration, with businesses are choosing to locate in the City to take advantage of these benefits

  • The overall economy in Toronto has broadened - Toronto has become a growing technology hub, the finance and fintech sectors have continued their growth, film, media and communications industries are strong, the education sector, particularly at the colleges and universities level, is booming, with a significant influx of international students who pay the full rate for tuition, along with their associated accommodation and living expenses, and so on.

  • Political issues in both the United States and Great Britain have restricted their ability to bring in talented workers, resulting in Toronto becoming a destination of choice for international companies setting up technology and research facilities needing skilled immigrants.

  • The open and accepting people environment here, with all its multicultural dimensions, has enhanced Toronto as destination of choice both people and businesses.

​
The Toronto area is undergoing a period of sustained population growth. The monthly Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey now has much greater granularity in its data, and among other statistics, now shows the year over year population growth for the Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto census metropolitan areas (CMS's). For the past while, the Toronto CMA has been experiencing a year over year population growth of around 135,000 - far in above the population growth in either Vancouver or Montreal. The data is available in the Statistics Canada daily release web site at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dai-quo/index-eng.htm

The specific table showing the Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto data for December 2018 is in Table 8 at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190104/t008a-eng.htm

So while I would by no means take the position that Toronto will not experience another cyclical slowdown - one will happen sooner or later - my feeling is that there are sufficient contextual differences between the present conditions and those which existed twenty to thirty years ago, that direct comparisons between then and now, leading to conclusions that the sky is about to fall in on the downtown property market, both commercial and residential, are not particularly appropriate or necessarily correct.
​
Click to expand...

May I say how much I enjoyed this post.

The first portion is quality 'common knowledge'; a perfectly good thing to add to this, or any discussion, as some may be unaware of it.

But going on from there to provide some insights; as well as citable data, with source links............

This is how posting should look.
 
Here is my updated render of what's coming:

Toronto Model 01-05-19 160FrontW.png
 
Relax, the sky is not falling:)

Toronto can’t build office towers fast enough
“We’re absorbing about a million square feet a year without new product coming online till 2020,” Mr. Forr says. “So you could soon have a 1-per-cent [vacancy] rate, maybe even 0 per cent with the activity we’re seeing.”

The broader Toronto market has about a 3-per-cent vacancy rate, but it’s already between 1 and 1.4 per cent in the core, depending on whose data you use.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/bus...toronto-cant-build-office-towers-fast-enough/
 
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