New Rogers Brampton Campus (Rogers, ?, ?)

[ShonTron]

Rogers is looking for Brampton City Council support for a proposed MZO for a new office campus in Downtown Brampton, replacing the current property at 8200 Dixie Road, a former Northern Telecom plant that was later refurbished into Nortel's headquarters and later acquired by Rogers. This will be considered at the council meeting on Wednesday, January 26.

Here's the body of the letter from John Mallovy, Rogers' Vice President, Corporate Real Estate:

On behalf of Rogers Communications Inc., I would like to thank you and Brampton City Staff for your attention and support as Rogers endeavors to strengthen its presence as a proud employer and investor in Brampton. Brampton is home to a critical and valued employee base of technology workers who are currently working out of a repurposed industrial building at 8200 Dixie Road. The current building underserves both the employees’ and company’s needs and does not align with Rogers’ vision for dynamic workplaces that attract and retain top talent. The site is also underutilized.

Rogers plans to invest more than $100 million in a state-of-the-art, transit-oriented Brampton campus, co-located with the Downtown Brampton GO Station. An office of this nature would allow Rogers to retain 3,000 high-paying jobs across Peel Region and continue to attract employees and future tech talent to Ontario. It would also situate Rogers at a growing major Regional transit node along the Toronto-Brampton-Waterloo Innovation Corridor, significantly expanding our transit accessible employee catchment area.

After review of potential locations for a Brampton Campus, Rogers has confirmed that the only suitable property is located on the block bound by Railroad St, Elizabeth St N, Nelson St W and George St N. The property is currently owned by Metrolinx and is used as a surface parking lot. The timely acquisition of this parcel with direct access to Brampton GO, regional and local bus transit and ideally, the future Downtown Brampton LRT station, in addition to other downtown amenities is essential to Rogers’ ability to commit to long-term investment in a new Brampton campus.

As Rogers seeks to consolidate its presence in Brampton around the Brampton GO Lands, it is looking to revitalize the 8200 Dixie lands by adding residential uses along Dixie while preserving a valuable employment node throughout the majority of the site. Rogers is seeking Brampton City Council’s support to request two Minister’s Zoning Orders (“MZO”s) that will enable Rogers to usher in a new era of investment in Brampton. On the Brampton GO Lands, Rogers is seeking permissions that would enable a campus with a minimum of 200,000 SF of office and retail uses, with space for additional office or residential uses that could be added in phases. Simultaneously, Rogers is seeking an MZO for the lands it will be vacating at 8200 Dixie Road. Rogers is seeking to permit up to 1,200,000 SF of industrial logistics uses and up to 25 acres of residential development along Dixie Road to be built out with a range of housing types. Rogers requests to delegate to council on the matter on January 26, 2022.

The enclosed letter and exhibits present a strong planning rationale for the proposed projects. Rogers is most grateful for the City’s support to date and looks forward to working together to advance this project.

The new downtown site would be on land owned by Metrolinx, which acquired a dozen residential properties, demolished the houses, and has now nearly completed construction of a new parking lot. The two office buildings at Nelson Street West and George Street are vacant and are currently owned by the City of Brampton, meant to support future development, including the new transit hub on the east side of George, and the Innovation Centre, on the south side of Nelson. Rogers wants that land because of its transit connections to Toronto and Waterloo. This would also be a big boon to Downtown Brampton itself.

Furthermore, Rogers is looking to redevelop the 8200 Dixie Road site, with mixed use residential on the east side, towards Dixie Road, and retain industrial use on the west side, towards West Drive.

The MZOs, I suspect, would allow Rogers to expedite the development of both sites.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Interesting. 200k sf appears to be significantly less than their current footprint and wouldnt hold anything close to 3,000 employees.

 

[Northern Light]

(potentially) Perfect! Turning the largest parking lot in downtown Brampton, located right next to public transit into an office tower.

Good architecture and ground animation are key, but this is a potentially great development.

However, it now makes the case more compelling than ever that frequent GO service (15 minutes or better) must be extended beyond Bramalea to at least downtown Brampton if not beyond.
Of course, getting the Hurontario LRT at least this far north also makes abundant sense; and a case for further northward expansion is worth consideration.

This is an aerial pic of the Dixie site:

Notice how the creek from the north takes a rather hard turn (creeks do not do this naturally, LOL).....

I can see a really interesting idea here of extending the creek through the site as the divider between newly residential lands fronting Dixie and residual employment lands to the south-west., this is likely necessary regardless
to mitigate flooding risk.

Take a look at how much of this site is potentially in the drink if there's a major storm:

I would treat the N-S axis of blue there that runs across the middle of the site as a newly recreated ravine/floodplain.

It would serve ecology, disaster mitigation and enhance land value; win-win.

 

[Allandale25]

^ Metrolinx is also studying the Queen-Highway 7 BRT that will run through downtown Brampton.

 

[ShonTron]

Interesting. 200k sf appears to be significantly less than their current footprint and wouldnt hold anything close to 3,000 employees.

Yeah. The 8200 Dixie Road complex is massive, as it was originally a telecom components plant that employed 4000, and became the Nortel world headquarters right before the company collapsed.

200,000 square feet isn’t anything to scoff at for downtown Brampton, but it isn’t going to be able to replace 8200 Dixie on its own. The accompanying consultant’s letter suggests that the building could be as large as 500,000 square feet, which would come closer.

 

[Northern Light]

Yeah. The 8200 Dixie Road complex is massive, as it was originally a telecom components plant that employed 4000, and became the Nortel world headquarters right before the company collapsed.

200,000 square feet isn’t anything to scoff at for downtown Brampton, but it isn’t going to be able to replace 8200 Dixie on its own.

The downtown proposal seems sized for about 1,000 employees initially.

But the wording both allows for the retention of employment at Dixie and future expansion of the downtown campus.

 

[TOareaFan]

(potentially) Perfect! Turning the largest parking lot in downtown Brampton, located right next to public transit into an office tower.

Good architecture and ground animation are key, but this is a potentially great development.

However, it now makes the case more compelling than ever that frequent GO service (15 minutes or better) must be extended beyond Bramalea to at least downtown Brampton if not beyond.
Of course, getting the Hurontario LRT at least this far north also makes abundant sense; and a case for further northward expansion is worth consideration.

This is an aerial pic of the Dixie site:

View attachment 376081

Notice how the creek from the north takes a rather hard turn (creeks do not do this naturally, LOL).....

I can see a really interesting idea here of extending the creek through the site as the divider between newly residential lands fronting Dixie and residual employment lands to the south-west., this is likely necessary regardless
to mitigate flooding risk.

Take a look at how much of this site is potentially in the drink if there's a major storm:

View attachment 376082

I would treat the N-S axis of blue there that runs across the middle of the site as a newly recreated ravine/floodplain.

It would serve ecology, disaster mitigation and enhance land value; win-win.

Really surprised this is considered the largest parking lot in DT Brampton.....would not have thought so. Also looking forward to finding out what toxic mess they find under that site at 8200 Dixie.

That said, these are all positive developments for the city....developments that bring challenges and some motivations will be questioned....but if you could start fresh I doubt anyone would question that we are better with housing/mixed use on Dixie and a large private sector employer in modern office space in the DT.

 

[ShonTron]

Really surprised this is considered the largest parking lot in DT Brampton.....would not have thought so. Also looking forward to finding out what toxic mess they find under that site at 8200 Dixie.

It was rumoured that was why Nortel kept ownership of the old Bramalea plant after it shut down in 1995 and converted it into its headquarters.

I’m sure it can be cleaned up, and that the economics makes more sense now than it did in the 1990s. After all, the old Northern Electric plant in Montreal is now pricey loft apartments, and the old CGE plant on Lansdowne has been redeveloped.

 

[TOareaFan]

It was rumoured that was why Nortel kept ownership of the old Bramalea plant after it shut down in 1995 and converted it into its headquarters.

I’m sure it can be cleaned up, and that the economics makes more sense now than it did in the 1990s. After all, the old Northern Electric plant in Montreal is now pricey loft apartments, and the old CGE plant on Lansdowne has been redeveloped.

absolutely, the easiest thing to do with a contaminated site is leave it alone and in similar use (as long as the "stuff" is not travelling into more sensitive areas)....i think it will be a huge dig, remove and dump project....the issue with these types of projects is that they often increase the land cost to the point that the land input into devlopment does not make sense.....not likely the case here at all as Rogers likely has a massive amount of room between their acquisition/book cost of the land and current "clean site" value to make it good to go....not insurmountable....but, as I said, it will be interesting. (sadly, I personally, contributed to some of the "crap" that may be under that building from my days in the "junk and salvage" department that they hid out back there).

 

[ShonTron]

Between the main station lot, the Dominion Skate lot (currently leased to the construction crew building the rental towers there), the lower lot off Main Street, and the new lot being completed, GO/Metrolinx is the largest surface parking lot operator in Downtown. I even suspect Metrolinx has more parking spaces downtown than the city has in off-street garages.

 

[TOareaFan]

Between the main station lot, the Dominion Skate lot (currently leased to the construction crew building the rental towers there), the lower lot off Main Street, and the new lot being completed, GO/Metrolinx is the largest surface parking lot operator in Downtown. I even suspect Metrolinx has more parking spaces downtown than the city has in off-street garages.

It may be true that GO has, in total, the most surface spaces in DT Brampton.....but that, in itself, does not make this the largest parking lot in the city (not even close)....and, no, even with the addition of these 270 spots there are not more GO spots than the 1,500 spots the city operates in its 5 parking structures in the DT not including the 41 it has at the surface lot on George N.

Rogers is a better use for this GO lot...but no need to suggest something that is not true to support that. What I think everyone should be concerned about is that Rogers sat and watched Metrolinx acquire the property (it was available for years), demolish the houses, spend money building the lot and then jumped in and said "nah, we want that for a better use and we need you to circumvent zoning procedures to get there"

 

[TOareaFan]

The city and Rogers had a bit of a love in today and it ended up with the city approving a motion to apply to the province for 2 MZOs to cover the move.

All the discussion was on the DT site. Rogers spoke of how they want to be DT, part of the innovation corridor and how inefficient their current location on Dixiie is in the new ways of working. Sure sounded like they plan on accommodating the same number (or more) employees but did reference the emerging hybrid work place and that is likely a big part of how you do that in a smaller building. They are already in discussion with Metrolinx about acquiring the lands (should be clear they specifically used the word purchase so any fear they were trying to squeeze a freebee here were softened) and the Mayor noted that he had spoken to ML and they are supporting the MZO with the province....so that all looks like this is a "go".

Not much to report on the other MZO...approved to apply but no discussions on what it means in terms of populations, transit, built form, services in south Bramalea because, well, it's not DT.

 

[Northern Light]

* Cross-post from Brampton RT thread *

From a Briefing note to Brampton Council: (first posted by @Allandale25 in the Brampton RT thread)

Link here: https://pub-brampton.escribemeeting...=Merged&lang=English&Item=115&Tab=attachments

We learn a couple of things:

To highlight, Rogers is looking to relocate approximately 3,000 employees from the Dixie campus.

Clearly, as a matter of basic math, this would involve a complex larger than 200,000ft2 as that would be only 66ft2 per employee (not happening)

 

[ShonTron]

I’ve been following the saga of the Metrolinx parking lot for nearly five years. Though there are questions and a few concerns, I get why Brampton Council unanimously supported Rogers’ bid for the MZO requests.

I wrote more here:

A new twist in the story of a downtown parking lot

A nearly-completed GO Transit parking lot in Downtown Brampton may never open, as Rogers eyes the site.

seanmarshall.ca

 

[ShonTron]

The city and Rogers had a bit of a love in today and it ended up with the city approving a motion to apply to the province for 2 MZOs to cover the move.

All the discussion was on the DT site. Rogers spoke of how they want to be DT, part of the innovation corridor and how inefficient their current location on Dixiie is in the new ways of working. Sure sounded like they plan on accommodating the same number (or more) employees but did reference the emerging hybrid work place and that is likely a big part of how you do that in a smaller building. They are already in discussion with Metrolinx about acquiring the lands (should be clear they specifically used the word purchase so any fear they were trying to squeeze a freebee here were softened) and the Mayor noted that he had spoken to ML and they are supporting the MZO with the province....so that all looks like this is a "go".

Not much to report on the other MZO...approved to apply but no discussions on what it means in terms of populations, transit, built form, services in south Bramalea because, well, it's not DT.

Yeah, I watched it too. I was hoping there would be a bit more discussion and questions from council, especially after the Williams Parkway sound wall item before it. MZOs should be rare events, and I don’t know why Rogers suddenly had a need to rush this.

But they had a strong endorsement from the Downtown BIA, from the New Brampton lobby group, and a briefing note that basically said “go for it.” Given the struggles to support the downtown core over the years, but now a flurry of development proposals (mostly residential), it’s not the location that would be controversial.

It’s above board, at least – it was in an open session of Council, with the staff briefing note made public (which is unusual).

But yeah, I would have liked more discussion on the Dixie Road lands.