Toronto The HUB | 258.46m | 59s | Oxford Properties | Rogers Stirk Harbour

maestro said:
This building is huge. There are very few anchors that can take 50% of the space. Oxford doesn't need to build this tower. I don't see any advantage in playing musical chairs with tenants under 50,000 square feet to get this tower built over securing a safe anchor tenant in a long term contract.
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It's not musical chairs to fill the tower; it's musical chairs to prevent losing their better clients. Their small tenants looking for additional space right now need to leave Oxford entirely. Small growing tenants are the best ones to have; they're more recession proof than stable or shrinking tenants, and often are willing to pay a touch more for a premium product (not as focused on belt tightening).

If Oxford wants to be in a good place in 2030, with above median rents and a naturally growing client base, they really need to expand their floor area downtown now.
 
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Toronto's office vacancy rate is crazy tight, at historic lows, tighter than any other city on the continent. Oxford said when they announced this building that they don't need to wait for an anchor tenant to go ahead on this, and there's no reason to believe that's changed. I agree that we will be an SPA application soon, and that there'll be shoring rigs on the site before that's even signed off on (they don't need final approvals on what's above ground to start digging).

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maestro said:
This building is huge. There are very few anchors that can take 50% of the space. Oxford doesn't need to build this tower. I don't see any advantage in playing musical chairs with tenants under 50,000 square feet to get this tower built over securing a safe anchor tenant in a long term contract.
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Come on stop being so negative throughout this forum, it's tall...but 1.2 million sq.ft.of office space in a structure is not considered that huge
50% of that (600.000 sq. ft.) can easily be scooped up by an anchor tenant looking for a hi-tech facility....read my lips, this will break ground before years end
 
I expect no less from you AG. I'm not making any predictions. We aren't a major US market. There aren't very many anchors that need 600,000 square feet in the city and the number of tech anchors that large can be counted on one hand.

Our economy is driven by real estate development and tech which both are being traded as over valued commodities. I don't know what will happen but, the economy isn't as stable as it looks. I expect Oxford to take a cautious approach and the whole spec argument is probably just marketing hype. They will want a secure, established lead tenant. We had a massive real estate bust in the early 90s that killed many developers. They took the side of caution and did not win or lose in the huge tech boom and accompanying bust of 2001. Securing stable lead tenants in long term contracts made the Albertan oil bust of 2014 a lot less devastating. Vacancies and rates went from the tightest with some of the highest rates on the continent to 30% vacancy and rents where you pay the expenses in 3 years. The REITs that went after small growing LLPs, etc. are in a worse position as many don't exist anymore so the unleaseable space was returned to them. Oxford can afford not to rush into this taking on unnecessary risk.
 
The colour scheme of the lobby elevator banks reminds me of the Microsoft Windows logo. Would be a perfect HQ for them.
 
I see myself being more cautious than pessimist although it is apt compared to the overconfidence of AG. Toronto's economy being tied to services doesn't really say anything about the services being provided and how they connect to the driving forces in our office boom. The only convincing thing said so far has been the hot office market and the low vacancy but, it doesn't contradict securing an anchor tenant before proceeding. I'm not predicting it will turn for the worse but, that it can turn for the worse and quickly providing examples for it. The is a large high stake investment. Less for Oxford and Omers. It's potentially career ending for the people employed by Oxford that are making the decision when to build.

I really don't care if proven wrong, I'm also flexible despite how it may look I'm aware other developments have been released to the public as being built on spec but, it wasn't very long afterwards a major anchor tenant was announced.

Canada is a hostile place for small business. We are deficient in venture capital and have oligopolies controlling almost each business sector ready to bully new competition into submission. The large tenants are the biggest clients for many smaller tenants and it hurts the smaller tenants when the larger ones do poorly. It comes across unnecessarily risky to fill a new tower with smaller tenants. My point is that Oxford should not have to wait too long to find a solid anchor given our office space economy and is alot less risky if the overall economy were to shift during the duration of the lease.
 
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Amazing how MS will only need 4 floors, so I suspect they are not moving from 222 Bay Street either.
 
Microsoft's Mississauga office is not really that big, it makes sense why they only need 4 floors. It's probably better for them in the long run, it likely gives them much more room to expand.
 
Gizmo said:
Amazing how MS will only need 4 floors, so I suspect they are not moving from 222 Bay Street either.
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The office at 222 Bay is about 1/4 full. They only have MSN and Bing working out of there since they sold their sales team to AOL a few years ago.
 
Development wise their Toronto presence is still very small, not really sure how much that'll grow in time, a lot of this is just relocating existing staff under one roof. They talk about 500 new positions but the details are fuzzy to say the least as they have development in other cities in i.e. Vancouver and Montreal.
 
A few pictures from its British "cousin" from this last weekend - it we get anything like this - it will be a treat v

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And littler cousin at 88 Wood

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