Toronto Globe and Mail Headquarters: Never-Built | ?m | 18s | The Globe and Mail | KPMB

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My understanding is the Globe and Mail will be acting as developer. They may sell out once ground has been broken but, it makes no sense for a newspaper to diverge into real estate development. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if Thompson has hands in these sort of companies.
 
I doubt that they need the new office space per se, but the value of their land has risen to the point that the profits from developing it would be huge. That is why I think that they will try to build as large a building as they are allowed to. That would maximize their financial return, provided that they find tenants, and they must have decided that the projected office market at the time that the project is completed would support full occupancy.
 
yeah, up until recently there was a strange overlap in ownership. They all get all their feeds from Reuters anyway...
 
Here is a pic from another post by jasonzed that just gives us an idea of how large of a lot the Globe occupies in that area.

11282010109-1.jpg
 
from today's Daily Commercial News, posted with the usual caveat....

NEWSPAPER HEADQUARTERS Proj: 9128823-1
Toronto, Metro Toronto Reg ON CONTEMPLATED

Globe and Mail Headquarters, Wellington St W, King Street West Neighbourhood, M5V
$40,000,000 est

Note: This project is very preliminary. Owner's Rep is securing a site. How an Architect will be secured is undetermined. Schedules for design, tender and construction have not been set. Further update early Summer, 2011.

Project: proposed construction of a new headquarters for the Globe and Mail. The building will house a newspaper printing facility, newsroom and editorial and management office space.
Development: New
Category: Commercial offices; Manufacturing plants
 
The building will actually house the printing facility as well as news and editorial? That's kind of quaint -- I hope they are making the space easily convertible for when slapping ink on dead trees finally goes away (which will surely be during the lifetime of this building).
 
One can presume a smaller building with a more compact, high-tech press.

Any time I've been inside the existing Globe offices, the place was dead.
 
$40 million for a new headquarters?

that's peanuts.

think of the new bloomberg, by ceasar pelli, or the nytimes building, by renzo piano.

this suggests thomson-reuters/globe and mail doesn't value the importance of having a strong physical pressence.

that said, compared to bloomberg and the nytimes, the globe and mail and reuters have become sub par, in terms of editorial quality. so maybe a cheapo hq is appropriate.
 
In other media building news, Bloomberg has hired Foster & Partners to build a 500,000 sq ft. new European HQ in London, across from the Bank of England. Cost not disclosed. --story here: http://www.cityam.com/news-and-anal...ster-design-its-new-london-hq-walbrook-square

However can hardly blame the Globe for keeping it small. The new NYT tower had to be mortgaged shortly after construction, and fundamentally most newspapers just aren't that big--Globe is what, a few hundred editorial staff? Still, Thomson has deep pockets and wouldn't be surprised to see a big-name architect in their hometown.
 
I expect to see a locally established architect with a pedigree in institutional designs... KPMB or Diamond.
 
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