A New Bay Street?

[sodapop]

i've been thinking, in 40-50 years could there be a street as prestigous and financially powerful as bay street? if some new office boom came about and they had no room to build on bay street couldn't a new street become canadas most powerful street....if so, do you guys have any thoughts on what that street might be and on what section of it (if not the entire street)

 

[taal]

Somewhere in Mississauga or Markham maybe ? : - ) ... seriously, there's a massive amount of office development proposed for or just starting in Markham on Hi-way 7 in the empty lots ... a good couple of million square feet. Downtown Markham is supposedly going to have 3 million.

MCC - nope, not even close ... I'm thinking about the Airport West node (i.e. south to maybe Eglinton) - tons of construction here as well.

 

[lafard]

Realistically, 7 Ave SW.

In Toronto, Bay will always remain prominent, though it might be superceded. The prestige is in the core and will always be in the core; it's a matter of which way it spreads. King East, maybe?

 

[Jonny5]

What do you mean by Bay Street? The street itself? The area?

I think the idea of the prestige address is pretty much dead in Toronto. Investment firms have spread out a lot in the city lately. You can small and large firms with employees who get 7+ figure pay on Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton and in North York Centre. Clients don't think less of them for not being on Bay Street. The appearance of your office space, wherever it is, seems to generate prestige though. Your clients will think a pimped out office in The Weston Centre is more prestigious than a dingy cubicle farm in Commerce Court.

Conrad Black's old office on Toronto Street was probably the most prestigious in the city in it's day.

 

[Coltaine79]

In terms of financial services firms, I do agree that the "North York city centre" (if that's the term we now use for Yonge from Sheppard to Finch) is sort of becoming an emerging mini-power center. Things will only get better after Hullmark Centre goes up! That should be a pretty prestigious location for any firm.

 

[taal]

In terms of financial services firms, I do agree that the "North York city centre" (if that's the term we now use for Yonge from Sheppard to Finch) is sort of becoming an emerging mini-power center. Things will only get better after Hullmark Centre goes up! That should be a pretty prestigious location for any firm.

You're kidding right ? Hullmark's 200,000 square feet of office is being marked as condo offices i.e. it'll be full of small business (dentists / doctors / small lawyer firms / ...). Other then that - when's the last office building you've seen built here, I think it was 2004 and before that was likely a good 5/10 years ... and this is during a building boom.

Power center ? I couldn't think of an opposite word to describe it, it was built like this to start and did have a lot of success early on but has been eternally stagnant for the last 6+ years (with 0 growth whatsoever) and even if you look back the last 15+ years it's been 1 office building.

Moreover, hullmark was just about forced to include an office component - note that I think they sold well but again only to very small firms due to the condo nature.

There is no office growth in Toronto outside of the core as sad as that is (even along all the subway lines) ...

 

[sodapop]

What do you mean by Bay Street? The street itself? The area?

I think the idea of the prestige address is pretty much dead in Toronto. Investment firms have spread out a lot in the city lately. You can small and large firms with employees who get 7+ figure pay on Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton and in North York Centre. Clients don't think less of them for not being on Bay Street. The appearance of your office space, wherever it is, seems to generate prestige though. Your clients will think a pimped out office in The Weston Centre is more prestigious than a dingy cubicle farm in Commerce Court.

Conrad Black's old office on Toronto Street was probably the most prestigious in the city in it's day.

i meant bay street being the street, although the city has spread bay street still seems to be at the centre of it all. its reffered to by people still to be the main financial street that people still seem to refer to as "the wall street of canada".....

 

[Coltaine79]

You're kidding right ? Hullmark's 200,000 square feet of office is being marked as condo offices i.e. it'll be full of small business (dentists / doctors / small lawyer firms / ...). Other then that - when's the last office building you've seen built here, I think it was 2004 and before that was likely a good 5/10 years ... and this is during a building boom.

Power center ? I couldn't think of an opposite word to describe it, it was built like this to start and did have a lot of success early on but has been eternally stagnant for the last 6+ years (with 0 growth whatsoever) and even if you look back the last 15+ years it's been 1 office building.

Moreover, hullmark was just about forced to include an office component - note that I think they sold well but again only to very small firms due to the condo nature.

There is no office growth in Toronto outside of the core as sad as that is (even along all the subway lines) ...

Really? Thats surprising, i would have assumed it would follow the model of the Sheppard Centre. Where a major Big 5 bank is an anchor tenant in the office complex with about 15+ floors under a long term lease and no plans to move out anytime soon. And numerous other smaller corporate tenants as well.

So where are all the new offices setting up shop then, if they find the core too expensive?
The 905 areas?

 

[taal]

Really? Thats surprising, i would have assumed it would follow the model of the Sheppard Centre. Where a major Big 5 bank is an anchor tenant in the office complex with about 15+ floors under a long term lease and no plans to move out anytime soon. And numerous other smaller corporate tenants as well.

So where are all the new offices setting up shop then, if they find the core too expensive?
The 905 areas?

Are you referring to Hullmark, nope that went the condo office route - which has it's place don't get me wrong. But it doesn't attract the large firms you see leaving Toronto (or as of late just expanding in the 905 - not so much leaving).

btw just to be clear, I'm not saying that NYCC is filled with vacant office space - most of it is full and it's seen a pretty good rebound post recession. My point is, there's been 0 new growth whatsoever - again 1 office building was built in 2004 or so - and nothing before that for 5/10 years I believe. This is in a major building boom period! If they can't build then they never ever will!


I mean, what about the rest of the 416 (excluding the core) ? Has anyone seen / heard of an office building being constructed in the last 10 years (you could count them on a couple of fingers - not even one hand). I'm not sure why this doesn't alarm people as much as it does me.

I won't get into the details why there's a tone of debate about that - tax being the focus of course but anyway ... it just irks me to so much growth in the 905 and so little in the outer 416 (were talking about 3 fairly large cities here i.e. North York / ...).

 

[Glen]

Just to be clear, taal has not hijacked my account.

 

[CN Tower]

There have been very few new office buildings constructed in Toronto period. The office market has never really recovered from the early 90s recession. What we see is really just musical chairs. You cn count the new projects on your hands.

 

[taal]

Just to be clear, taal has not hijacked my account.

Right, and I know I go on and on about this whenever I get the chance and I can understand why some / all of you are sick and tired of it - so I'll stop if that's the case but I think I'm just looking to see it does bother others as much as it others me As silly as that is I know.

Again, I'm not predicting doom and gloom here for Toronto - the vacancy rates are still relatively low even in the outer parts of the 416 (with a couple exceptions) so while some firms have left the city there's been at least some growth to fill in that vacant space . But at the end of the day there's been 0 new growth over the past long whle and that's just astonishing to me.

The downtown core has seen growth and probably will continue to do so - but it's likely one can argue it's at a slower rate then one would expect given just how successful the GTA is. But as others have pointed out firms that locate downtown do so as they want / need to be downtown and this attitude isn't going will likely prevail for some business. The rest of the city, however, and 905, should be on equal playing fields in terms of location (yes there some advantages to say an area on the hi-way or near a subway or nearer to your employees) but still there's not as much location based decisions in the sense that someone doesn't need to be located at SCC or Marhakm on Hi-way 7. So it comes down to the other factors i.e. costs and the like.

Clearly the outer 416 has been the big loser on this front (for whatever reason).

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

There have been very few new office buildings constructed in Toronto period. The office market has never really recovered from the early 90s recession. What we see is really just musical chairs. You cn count the new projects on your hands.

Pretty big hands. The downtown core by itself has had a huge influx in the last 2-3 year -- Bay-Adelaide, RBC Dexia, Southcore, Telus. All told it was, what, a 10-15% increase in downtown space? That's huge in such a short time.

 

[taal]

Pretty big hands. The downtown core by itself has had a huge influx in the last 2-3 year -- Bay-Adelaide, RBC Dexia, Southcore, Telus. All told it was, what, a 10-15% increase in downtown space? That's huge in such a short time.

Yea downtown has seen some growth - you could argue it's not as huge as it seems though as there was very little growth 10 years prior (while there were some small projects that went up still).
All in the core.

But yea, the core should be OK and will likely continue to grow - but I don't suspect it'll be at a very large pace.

It's interesting there are a lot of articles in the states about how some businesses are deciding to return to the core - clearly a lot of those cities saw huge declines so it's not in any way comparable and the issues at play were different. They left the core as people wouldn't want to work there due to crime / lack of transportation / no close housing. We don't have that here, quite the opposite. Some business will of course locate else where to be closer to whatever they see fit. Areas like SCC / NYCC / airport east maybe fit that role better - but again crime / transportation really shouldn't be a factor so it seems like cost is the only issue.

 

[Automation Gallery]

With all the doom and gloom, not to worry..The big ones are coming...45 Bay, BAC-2, BCE-3, Bay Adelaide-3 etc...