Shopify sheds Ottawa office space amid planned Toronto expansion
Sept 1, 2020
Shopify plans to vacate its Ottawa headquarters on 150 Elgin Street and move to an office tower on Laurier Avenue, amid reports that the e-commerce giant is set to expand its Toronto presence.
Shopify and CBRE Ottawa’s managing director Shawn Hamilton confirmed to BetaKit the company’s decision to sublease its Elgin Street office, a CBRE property, where Shopify has a lease deal until 2026.
Shopify currently occupies several floors at 150 Elgin Street, in Ottawa’s central business district. The location has housed Shopify’s headquarters since 2014. Pre-COVID-19 and prior to the company’s shift to
permanent work from home, the 170,000 square foot space served over 850 Shopify employees.
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The changes to its Ottawa office space comes shortly after the publicly-traded company reportedly exercised an option to expand its space at The Well in downtown Toronto, where the company is set to open an additional office in the city in 2022. BetaKit has not independently verified the claim and a Shopify spokesperson declined to respond to questions about the decision. At the same time, Shopify
has confirmed it is transitioning out of its old Toronto Spadina Avenue office, which the company opened as the first of its locations in the city in 2014 at 35,600 sq. ft. Last year, Shopify
opened a King Street West office, in downtown Toronto, to house around 450 employees.
“Ottawa remains an important talent market for us, it’s where Shopify was founded, and our 234 Laurier office will be reimagined for our digital by default mindset,” the Shopify spokesperson told BetaKit. “As we move to a decentralized, remote way of working, the reality is that most people will be working from home versus coming into the office on a daily, recurring basis.”
Shopify will vacate its Ottawa HQ on 150 Elgin Street and move to an office tower on Laurier Avenue, amid reports it is set to expand in Toronto presence.
betakit.com