Toronto CIBC SQUARE | 241.39m | 50s | Hines | WilkinsonEyre

  • Thread starter Suicidal Gingerbread Man
  • Start date
The SITQ owns Place Ville-Marie and I000 de la Gauchetière, two of Montreal's largest office buildings. The only thing they have planed for Montreal is a 28 storey office building. And they are still waiting for a significant tenant before starting construction. Sigh...

85487490.jpg
 
Also, the “45, Bay Street” is located opposite the Center Air
Canada, the amphitheatre of Maple Leafs of the LNH and of
Raptors of the NBA, as well as an important place of
entertainment of the fortunate professionals of the district
financier.
Click to expand...

A funny translation, but true. The ACC certainly is an important place of entertainment for those fortunate professionals of the financial district that have expense accounts and can actually see the Leafs.

Back on topic, this is very interesting news. 50 floors is a little ho-hum, but I'll gladly take it for lower Bay Street. It's a great location for offices, but this would be some place where the proposed intercity bus terminal should go (not the former OPP building), so I wonder if there will be a chance for it.

1000 de la Gauchetière, the tallest tower in Montreal, hosts the bus terminal for South Shore buses from Longueuil and elsewhere.
 
The thread title says 1000+ feet, but I can't see that anywhere in the piece, which just says 45-50 floors (which would make it B/A height, no?). Am I missing something?
 
The first 50 posts are about a year old, and concerned speculation on what might be built there, based on a 'fantasy' rendering. It's just today that news of this 45 to 50 floor office building has emerged.

Bill

p.s. -- I am glad that a non-condo building may be going up here, this is an excellent location for an office building. I am a bit concerned about the amount of new office space entering the market over the next several years, though. It might be enough to delay the start of this project, depending on forecasts of demand.
 
That's a HUGE lot. I wonder if this building will take up the entire lot, or will only cover a small section at the corner leaving room for more buildings between it and the Condo on Yonge.
 
It appears from the article that their decision to build will be based upon the market and that the decision has not yet been made (I am not sure they are going to build with a 12% vacancy rate). They bought the land with the intention of building but they could also sit on the land for a while.
 
we won't be seeing 12% unless the economy goes into the toilet
 
Although according to Raymond Wong, quoted in the article, even at a projected 12% office vacancy rate (I assume for the downtown core), the project is probably still interesting enough for the developer to go ahead, provided the economy doesn't tank. Not to mention that Caisse de Dépots et Placements will probably use a big chunk of that office space itself.

Bill
 
I thought that I'd do what I like to do so much -- crunch some numbers! I am trying to come up with a reasonable height for this tower, with a given number of floors and a given per-square-foot budget.

I will look at four possible spending options: cheap, medium-budget, high-budget and luxury. Given the anticipated 12% office vacancy rates when this tower comes on line, I doubt that Caisse de Dépots et Placements will go cheap, given that a little extra money on building quality will make it significantly easier to attract tenants. The project will (in my opinion) probably be in the 'medium-budget' or 'high-budget' class. I have 'luxury' as an option, but realistically it's doubtful -- although I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Here are the numbers I am using. They are guesses on my part, if anybody has more realistic numbers, I would use them instead.

HEIGHT PER STANDARD FLOOR
Cheap: 3.9m
Medium: 4.1m
High: 4.3m
Luxury: 4.5m

TOTAL EXTRA CEILING HEIGHT DUE TO PODIUM
Cheap: none
Medium: 4m
High: 8m
Luxury: 12m

EXTRA ROOF HEIGHT, OTHER THAN ESSENTIAL MECHANICAL (5m)
Cheap: none
Medium: 5m
High: 10m
Luxury: 20m

45f=180.5m / 46f=184.4m / 47f=188.3m / 48f=192.2m / 49f=196.1m / 50f=200.0m (cheap)
45f=198.5m / 46f=202.6m / 47f=206.7m / 48f=210.7m / 49f=214.8m / 50f=218.9m (medium-budget)
45f=216.5m / 46f=220.8m / 47f=225.1m / 48f=229.4m / 49f=233.7m / 50f=238.0m (high-budget)
45f=239.5m / 46f=244.0m / 47f=248.5m / 48f=253.0m / 49f=257.5m / 50f=262.0m (luxury)

For comparison, other MINT towers include Bay-Adelaide West u/c at 50f, 218m (medium-budget by this scale), Bay Wellington at 49f, 207m (between cheap and medium-budget), and Royal Trust at 46f, 183m (cheap). FCP at 72f, 298m is also between cheap and medium-budget by modern standards, as is Commerce Court West at 57f, 239m.

We need to keep in mind that Toronto is still quite conservative when it comes to floor height, compared to some other cities. Bay-Adelaide West is hardly 'medium-budget' for Toronto, but it is when compared to office towers going up in say Dubai (leaving aside the much lower labour and other costs there).

If this tower follows suit, it is likely to end up between 200m and 220m, depending on the number of floors.

Bill
 
There is a little more information about this project in today's Globe and Mail:

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmai...3/Headlines/headdex/headdexBusiness/25/25/52/

Caisse to build office tower in downtown Toronto

Bloomberg
Saturday, September 15, 2007 – Page B8

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canada's biggest pension-fund manager, will build a 40- to 50-storey office tower in downtown Toronto to expand its real estate holdings in Canada's largest city. SITQ, the Caisse's office building unit, bought the land at 45 Bay St. in May, spokeswoman Amelie Plante said yesterday. She declined to say when the tower might be built or how much the project would cost. The proposed building, located across the street from the Air Canada Centre, would house about 1.2 million square feet of office space and fill a void in the Caisse's real estate portfolio. Only one of SITQ's four Toronto-area buildings is in the city's downtown core.

So 45 Bay will have about 1,200,000 SF of office space. This means another tower in the same size range (1,100,000 SF to 1,300,000 SF) as the TD Bank tower, Commerce Court West, Bay-Adelaide West, the RBC Centre, the Bay-Wellington tower and the Canada Trust tower. In addition, the city-required office component of the future 16 York development (across the street from MLS) will also be about 1,160,000 SF.

Bill
 
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