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More commercial please!

B

buildup

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Notwithstanding (or is it "withstanding") the RBC, BA, Telus projects I can't help but feel the condo market is way ahead of the commercial market in terms of capacity. Where are all these people going to work? Toronto just dipped to a 5% high grade office vacancy rate! Yet, there are probably around 15- 20 fifty floor condos planned or under development downtown. We are way overdue for 1-2 commercial projects on the scale of 1st Canadian place. So what gives?

If developers are worried about costs, I'd assume that in 2-3 years most of the pre-sold residential work will be tailing off and construction workers should be in greater supply.

Manulife, wtf are you?
 
It's hard to say but this entire boom is starting to mimic past ones.. Especially the 80's.

Here.. we're slowly near the end of a gigantic real estate boom, the towers have reached huge heights. Now, the office boom is taking over and announcement (such as the new SITQ tower) are becoming a reality. These booms always end with a huge flagship project (in this case could it be Manulife?)

I'd rather not even talk about Manulife though, that rumour has been rampant for 2 years now.
 
Sorry, which is the SITQ?

My point is that we haven't had a commercial boom of any kind- but we should.
 
Manulife, I think, is nothing but a poorly founded rumor. Anything can happen, of course, but I would not be holding my breath waiting for it.

We are getting over 3 million square feet of office space in the "core", by late 2009, considering Bay-Adelaide, RBC Centre, Telus, and some 160,000 square feet (I think) of office space in Maple Leaf Square.

That's not counting whatever Caisse de depot plans to do at 45 Bay Street, but I will be surprised if it is anything less than 500,000 square feet of office space, in a mixed-use development (say, one office tower and two or three condo towers), or maybe as much as 1 million square feet if they go for office space only.

Offices don't get built until a substantial amount of space is pre-leased, as with condo apartments being presold.
 
buildup said:
Sorry, which is the SITQ?

My point is that we haven't had a commercial boom of any kind- but we should.
Click to expand...

SITQ is the Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec's real estate arm. They're planning the 50 storey, 1.2 million sqf, tower at 45 Bay.
 
You're getting greedy now. I'd rather have a couple constantly under construction then a lot followed by nothing.
 
buildup said:
Notwithstanding (or is it "withstanding") the RBC, BA, Telus projects I can't help but feel the condo market is way ahead of the commercial market in terms of capacity. Where are all these people going to work?
Click to expand...

Judging by the traffic patterns developing in T.O., many of the people that are flocking to these new downtown condos don't actually work in the city, but in the 905. Traffic is jammed in both directions during rush hour now, and I know of several people in my condo that work in Markham.
 
RJR123 said:
Judging by the traffic patterns developing in T.O., many of the people that are flocking to these new downtown condos don't actually work in the city, but in the 905. Traffic is jammed in both directions during rush hour now, and I know of several people in my condo that work in Markham.
Click to expand...

I reverse commute... mind you, it's off peak, but I'm there for the Thursday rush hour. I've yet to be seriously jammed on the Gardiner and especially the 401, while I watch kilometers worth of cars stuck in the other direction.
 
My experience has been that no matter what direction you're travelling in during rush hour it's bad. If I land at Pearson at 5-ish and head downtown the Eastbound Gardiner is almost as brutal as the Westbound Gardiner. I imagine the DVP is the same.
I actually did a contract job in Mississauga a few years ago and found that in the morning commute rush hour it was a breeze, but coming back into the city at night was double the time. But I guess we're getting off topic already here! :)
 
Filip said:
It's hard to say but this entire boom is starting to mimic past ones.. Especially the 80's.

Here.. we're slowly near the end of a gigantic real estate boom, the towers have reached huge heights. Now, the office boom is taking over and announcement (such as the new SITQ tower) are becoming a reality. These booms always end with a huge flagship project (in this case could it be Manulife?)

I'd rather not even talk about Manulife though, that rumour has been rampant for 2 years now.
Click to expand...

And, I would add, that unlike in past booms, this time around institutional buildings also played a big part (U of T, AGO, ROM)
 
We're adding lots of condo units, yes, but it barely counters the effects of decreasing household size (even a 0.1 person reduction means tens of thousands of new units are required to house them), the shift of people moving from rental apartments or houses to condos, second/seasonal residences, vultur's specuvestors, etc. So, really, they're either already working here - and downtown office towers aren't the be-all & end-all of employment when so many people work in hospitals, malls, suburban industrial parks, etc. - or they aren't really "here" at all. There's lots of new jobs in the 905 but 905ers fill them, too...as 416ers move to the 905 to live/work, actual new condo dwellers can take the jobs they leave behind.
 
Yeah, the insitutions (highly skilled work) have been adding or are underway in adding lots more capacity, and it's almost below the radar. Projects like Ryerson expansion, CCBR, Pharmacy, MaRS and MaRS II, St. Mikes' Research, the mouse trap behind Mount Sinai, expansion of TGH, TWH, George Brown and add it all up and it's a big boom. Then add all the cultural facilities. Downtown employment is diversifying quite nicely.
 
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