Toronto Hullmark Centre | 167.94m | 45s | Tridel | Kirkor Architects

[UrbanAffair]

Might be a case of confirmation bias happening here. Either way, maybe we could just look to sales. There tend to be resales of comm/ind/res condos within short periods often. If I get a chance one of these days I will try to remember to do a quick look..

 

[maestro]

I'm not in the business but am curious about these high vacancies among office condos. Is this third type of buyer the individual investor that is just sitting on the units? I know that a lot of Asian investors sit on residential condos, not renting them out. Is this the same thing with office condos? Obviously they are not acting like a REIT trying to generate income. If the shadow vacancy rate is so high, should we be more worried about future downward rent pressure in the office space? Will this shadow office inventory put the value of office REITs under more pressure in the future? The likes of DREAM REIT have done poorly recently, largely because of Alberta, but is this a warning for Toronto as well? Thanks for the hard work, gumshoe!

totally different markets.

 

[maestro]

There are probably 3 or 4 office condos in the GTA; Its a none issue re: overall vacancy ... so no, no worry at all. All other commercial buildings are well reported there isn't "shadow office vacancy" ... you need to make sure you look at total inventory though which includes sublease space which is very common.

I think Calgary has huge problems; It's not just of the energy market it's more: They're a city that has really yet to see many firms start moving to smaller more modern layouts (like them or not) in Toronto this has been happening for years, and will continue to do so but many of the large players have already done such moves. This is why you often see (e.g. Airmiles) moving into a new building taking on the same or maybe a little less space yet employing significantly more people in that space. I wager the big oil companies will start moving toward this as well. Now this doesn't hurt the city so to speak, its still the same amount of people working, but there's less demand going forward as more people can fit in the same space.

LOL ... There's more than 3 or 4.

Here's 4.

255 Duncan Mills
220 Duncan Mills
36 Lombard Street
4168 Finch Avenue East

 

[maestro]

First of all, it's not like we've had 3 months worth of conversation about this issue. That said, out of all the posts here and on other threads,.... PonyBoy is closest, PonyBoy is partly right and definitely on the right track.


Tridel is definitely not buying up their own properties to make the numbers look good. Tridel HullmarkCentre completely sold out,... basically all the residential condo units sold out before construction started, all the office condo sold shortly there after construction started, all retail space were committed by then as well,... except one (Chipotle) bailed before construction finished and that site is now being renovated for spa (between WholeFoodsMarket @ HullmarkCentre south TTC entrance)

BTW, you may see a Tridel arm Del-Reality or whatever selling/renting/leasing Tridel HullmarkCentre residential or office condo units but that's usually on behalf of the real owner,... Tridel believe in their product and know their product well,... so they're often the best folks to represent their products on behalf of the owner.


Look Tridel don't have to buy up their own condos,... Tridel has such a solid reputation in the industry for it's quality build product,... if Tridel ever has any problem selling any of their units,... then you know the real estate market must be crashing and nobody is buying!


North York Centre has 3 developments with office condo (HullmarkCentre, EmeraldPark and 4050 Yonge (pre-construction)),.... and I've seen how this office condo scam works. And I've been warning people here about it,... but most don't care, all they care about is getting buildings developed as tall as possible,.... and anything that possibly interferes with that and they and their conspiracy theories just start accusing me of having ulterior motives,.... See some of my recent postings on various midtown developments and you'll see what I'm talking about. But really,... why bother,... let them get a few office condos in midtown or other areas of Toronto and then let's see if they can figure out why 80% of those office condo space will be empty.

I'm usually more than willing to share information,... but then I get posters like AutomationGallery trolling me (See post# 1569) posting crap that obviously doesn't add anything of value. His post doesn't encourage an intelligent conversation,... so why bother?


That said, Tridel HullmarkCentre is well aware that there's a serious problem,... all their office condo units are sold but 80% are sitting empty,.... See the attachment below,... a few days ago, Tridel HullmarkCentre Corporate offices hosted an Open House Information Session with Free Breakfast targeted at office condo owners,... to teach office condo owners how to market, sell, renovate their office condos,.... very informative, had numerous industry folks like renovator, builders, construction, designer, architect, brokers, agents, agents and more agents!, etc,... on hand to help the office condo folks,.... Funny things is there were more of those industry folks trying to sell their services,... than office condo owners! Not complaining at all,... plenty of free breakfast food for me!!!

City Planning is pissed - they know they've been scammed, City Planning was expecting real offices here representing real employment area providing real jobs,... instead 80% of the office space sits empty! End of the day,... I think that Open House was really just a scam,... for Tridel HullmarkCentre to show City Planning that Tridel HullmarkCentre isn't to blame,... that Tridel HullmarkCentre is trying to do their best to promote these Office Condo to be occupied instead of just sitting empty. That said, if you know who the vast majority of these office condo buyers are,.. you'd realize, there's no way they would show up to these Open House Information Session,.... free breakfast or not,....
View attachment 71638

There are hundreds of condos of all types sitting empty. There are completely vacant retail condos with new one being constructed right beside them. We got your point 40 posts ago. What do you want us to do? Put all the politicians in a boat and sink it? They are the ones that allowed real estate speculation to become a major industry in Canada and now they are doing everything they can to keep it going with good reason.

Just don't buy a condo. Let other outside forces lose their shirts.

 

[kris]

 

[taal]

LOL ... There's more than 3 or 4.

Here's 4.

255 Duncan Mills
220 Duncan Mills
36 Lombard Street
4168 Finch Avenue East

Thanks ! Didn't know that, still it's a tiny %, any idea how those other sites do ?

 

[maestro]

These were extracted from a list of condo corporations i have. I just picked the first four I saw. I don't know anything about them.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

Still waiting for the Bonnington Corner signage and camp-fire sculpture to return,.... meanwhile water mural almost done.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

Water mural has water running now,.... just waiting for them to turn on the multi-colour light effects at night,.... previous photo directly above shows 7 circular brass drainage thingys directly below glass mural - they're really the multi-colour lights projectors! In photo below I tried to use some of the background lights from the retail stores to get an idea of how the light effects might look,.... but I don't think it's even close to the real effect once water mural lights are on and projected at the water mural.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

HullmarkCentre new water mural lights up with Red, Green and Blue (RGB); rotates with about 1 minute per colour. Unfortunately, when it changes colour, it just change colour. It doesn't really blend the colours; in other words going from Red to Green doesn't show colours in between on the spectrum like various shades of Orange, Yellow and Lime,... thus, we don't see a rainbow of colours. The Red intensity decreases and turns off then the Green intensity increases,... looking at the light, you might quickly notice a lighter shade of Red, Green or Blue in between but it's fast and not intense so the colour really doesn't show on the water mural.

Water runs all day. Lights are turned on likely around dusk (7pm now) and stays on until around 11:15pm when water is stops as well.

The south side of the water mural (first 3 photos) is more colour intense because that's where there's more light. Lighting comes from bottom but frame is stainless steel so it reflect lights well and make it looks like light comes from top. Other colour in water mural are from background lighting like white cubes, white ShopperDrugMart signage, yellow Dollarama sign, traffic lights, etc,....

Last 3 photos show north side of water mural,.. the side with less intense Red, Green, Blue light effects.

Lately with the light show and water running at the water mural, I notice more people enjoying this public plaza,... sitting on the seating area enjoying the view or kids wanting to touch the water,.... the sound of the running water has a calming effect,... the running water gives it a icy frozen glass look,....

 

[taal]

@sunnyraytoronto Are there anymore public art components left for them to install at this point ?

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

@sunnyraytoronto Are there anymore public art components left for them to install at this point ?

Not really,....

This site where the water mural is to the corner of Yonge & Sheppard, used to host the cement bunker style emergency exit for the Sheppard Stubway station; the westend closer to Yonge Street had a little parkette (ok, super tiny!), with a couple of benches, antique copper style ATM, antique copper style campfire sculpture and stone signage with "Bonnington Corners" chiseled into it. These were public arts for the Sheppard Stubway station, they were removed during construction of HullmarkCentre and my understanding is the antique copper style campfire sculpture and stone signage with "Bonnington Corners" are supposed to return to this site. There might have been some debate if "Bonnington Corners" signage should go to someplace along Bonnington Place after the Doris Avenue extension south of Sheppard,.....

The antique copper style campfire sculpture would fit perfectly on top of one of the 3 large white illuminated cubes - the one closest to corner of Yonge & Sheppard has hollow ventilated top for it whereas the other 2 are perfectly flat top.

Other than that, all the public arts from HullmarkCentre seems to have been delivered. Within the public square, some of the marble flower bed edges constantly get damaged along the corner due to snowplow removal. And the 3 smaller white illuminated cubes are prone to breakage on top due to ice and snow accumulation. There were never any plans for chairs and tables in the public square (though some members here would like it) - WholeFoodsMarket set up their own outdoor patio tables area.

Renderings show blue illuminated fins and there seems to be wiring access holes along the fins - but so far no illumination.

P1 parking level hosts a public bike station - Tridel HullmarkCentre was required to put in about 70 public bike parking spaces but they almost doubled that! They also put in 3 bike showers-change room and 1 washroom facility; the problem is these facilities have not open yet,... they were finished more than a year ago but remain locked. When you think about it, public showere-change room and washroom facilities in P1 parking level,... sounds like a rapist dream infrastructure! Thus, likely a liability issue.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

Lately the water mural lights have not been changing between Red, Green and Blue,.... but just default with all colours and white light on,.... looks like white light with blue hue,.... with water running down the glass mural - the bottom of the glass mural looks like it flickers like a campfire between red, green and blue,.... and you see those colour in the water droplets falling off the glass mural just above the lights.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

The new beauty salon - spa rumoured for HullmarkCentre retail level next to WholeFoodsMarket,.... is actually a cosmetic - laser surgery place,.... NewDermaMed,....

 

[steveve]

Today from Yonge Street:

The visibility of this and Emerald Park on many of the major north-south arteries heading out of the city is quite spectacular.