I hardly go downtown these days but is the re-cladding of the tower complete?

It is getting VERY close. When last I looked about a week ago, they were down to the last couple of floors before the podium. The podium isn't done yet, however, and the interior remodel is maybe half done.
 
Is there any plan to renovate the interior floors?

I'm starting to work there in a few days and my floor is a complete throwback to the 80s. However, the 28th, another BMO floor, is beautifully renovated with lots of white and glass. It's really gorgeous.

I heard that BMO is looking at renovating all their floors, but not much more. Trying to find out a schedule if anything...
 
Progress

Taken with my BlackBerry from the fourth floor of the Canada Permanent building (through a window, so it's a little blurred due to the glass) last Wednesday:

Toronto-20111207-00012.jpg


I also noted on the way out Friday that some of the new cladding has been installed on the pillar right at King and Bay--was in a hurry, so no time to stop and take shots.
 
Is there any plan to renovate the interior floors?

I'm starting to work there in a few days and my floor is a complete throwback to the 80s. However, the 28th, another BMO floor, is beautifully renovated with lots of white and glass. It's really gorgeous.

I heard that BMO is looking at renovating all their floors, but not much more. Trying to find out a schedule if anything...


BMO aquired 37 to 43 and are renovating them to new specs. These will be coming online over the next year. Subsequently a number of highrise floors leases will be abandoned. These floors should have an internal staircase which was constructed by the previous tenant (Fraser Milner) Also Legal, Finance and Technology are rebuilding several emptied lower floors which should be ready for occupancy this year and will allow for the renovation of the currently occupied floors
 
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BMO aquired 37 to 43 and are renovating them to new specs. These will be coming online over the next year. Subsequently a number of highrise floors leases will be abandoned. These floors should have an internal staircase which was constructed by the previous tenant (Fraser Milner) Also Legal, Finance and Technology are rebuilding several emptied lower floors which should be ready for occupancy this year and will allow for the renovation of the currently occupied floors


I've always wondered why the BMO building, even when the office vacancy in the core was a mere 3/5% (back in 2007 or so), this building had about 300,000K of space, it sounds like a lot but amounts to just 10% or so but still ...

BCE place / RBC / Scotia, equally large towers, at that point had little space ?
 
There is a lot of variation in the vacancy rates among the big MINT towers, most are fairly low, but a few are ridiculously high. Commerce Court West currently has an almost 40% vacancy rate, and the Royal Trust Tower has a 36% vacancy rate.
 
The large vacancies in some of the buildings is due to the large tenants moving to the new towers you see going up (PricewaterhouseCoopers for example is moving out of the TD Centre to their new building, and they had a huge number of floors there). Commerce Court suffered the loss of KPMG to the Bay Adelaide tower.

The old towers in their current state don't cut it in today's market anymore. Thus, the landlords are using the opportunity to revitalize/renovate their properties while there are less tenants to disturb.
 
There is a lot of variation in the vacancy rates among the big MINT towers, most are fairly low, but a few are ridiculously high. Commerce Court West currently has an almost 40% vacancy rate, and the Royal Trust Tower has a 36% vacancy rate.

Right, RBC plaza used to be very high as well but it's essentially 0% in both towers now.


Anyway, in my message I was careful to say in the 2007 days i.e. pre construction of new towers, BMO still had a relatively high 10-15% vacancy, actually very high compared to the other AAA towers at the time.
 

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