A billion dollars and one jackhammer can quickly transform that into $20 billion.

I'm into sure which market you're in but that's definitely not Calgary or Edmonton. 1000 employees here (in O&G) would be at 200,000 square feet.

The Bow, 2 Million square feet to house 3,500 employees. It's not just Oil & Gas. CP Rail is leasing 400,000 square feet for about 1500 employees.

Could be an exciting year accross the country - hopefully a new tallest for each major market.:banana:
I find with Calgary's booms the proposals get better and better until the best ones get shelved when things go bust. Thankfully the office tower market never stays dormant very long it seems.:)

Manu2 looks Awesome - would be great for E-Town!

Well Toronto wont get a new tallest, I'll settle for over 200 meters:

100 Adelaide
156 Front
45 Bay

Or even 196 meters

Bay Adelaide 2

And very few of the banks throughout the world actually do own their towers.
He's making it sound like there's something wrong with Canadian banks selling their towers.
They shouldn't be in that type of business.

DirectEnergy is going to relocate their North York HQ (I believe a green glass office tower visible from the 401) to Houston, TX.
It's estimated that only 3000 jobs will remain in Toronto.

I heard they are transferring 500 jobs only...

Not a big deal, low wage jobs in their head office. They'll be ok.

Low wage jobs in the head office? How do you figure?

They are keeping the low paying service types here and moving the executives to Houston. Bunch of crooks anyways.

If they were high wage high skill jobs, they would have offered them jobs in Houston.

They didn't.

Obviously very replaceable talent.

Vacancy rates near 2008 peak of five per cent


BY ROBERT GIBBENS, SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE OCTOBER 21, 2011



STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )



Montreal office space vacancy rates at 6.1% down from 8% in 2010.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis, The Gazette
MONTREAL - Almost 900,000-square feet of downtown Montreal office space has been absorbed in the past 12 months, lowering average vacancy rates to 6.1 per cent from eight per cent and bringing the market near the 2008 peak of five per cent, says Jean Laurin, CEO of Newmark Knight Frank Devencore.

“We’re seeing a big variety of pre-development activity for the first time since 2004, as Cadillac Fairview seeks anchor tenants for a 500,000-square-foot tower, two other projects around Place Victoria take shape, and the move by Rio Tinto Alcan from Sherbrooke St. nears” he said.

But though business confidence has returned after a disastrous 2010, another early ’90s boom when 1250 René Lévesque and 1000 de la Gauchetiere rose to rival the Place Ville Marie and Place Victoria is most unlikely, he said.

Devencore’s latest survey confirms blocks of 100,000-square feet or more are rare – existing in only three or four major buildings. This, along with low interest rates and municipal incentives, is driving the upturn and prompting tenants with leases coming up for renewal to begin talking 12 to 18 months before termination.

The downtown market covers 46.2-million square feet of Class A and Class B space. In 2010, in the recession’s hangover, vacancy rates rose to eight per cent – meaning more than 3.5-million square feet of space was available for lease or sublet.

For Class A space alone the vacancy rate has dropped to 6.1 per cent from 6.8 per cent in six months; B class vacancy rate has fallen to six per cent from 8.5 per cent.

In the McGill College corridor, the combined A and B vacancy rate had climbed to 19 per cent in mid-2010. The current 8.5 per cent is partly due to the arrival of Astral, Desjardins and RSM Richter.

Cité du Multimedia’s vacancy rate has dropped from 36.6 per cent to 25.8 per cent – provincial employee tax credits ran out, worsening the recession’s impact.

Devencore said the René Lévesque corridor vacancies have dropped to six per cent from seven per cent and Sherbrooke Street is steady at 7.7 per cent.

Devencore is the Canadian arm of the international Newmark Knight Frank based in New York and one of the world’s biggest property advisers and brokers with 240 offices worldwide.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette


Read more: [URL="http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Vacancy+rates+near+2008+peak+five+cent/5589894/story.html#ixzz1k2U6Qwz3"[/URL]

Crooks indeed. Nothing but a glorified billing company

craner: Hate to dissagree with you, but with exception of the Bow & maybe EAP, Calgary's best, tallest proposals (office and Residential), always get shelved!! They hang around for a while and then like fruit on a tree, they get old and die on tree never to return. Too Bad, really....

Two of the companies we work with in Calgary are more or less in crisis mode over office space.

Company A: Has been subleasing an entire floor and was just notified that they are being kicked out June 1st, they now have to relocate about 35 -50 people off-site. They are seriously considering leasing a former private surgical suite and an adjoining dentists office in the Northwest and sticking accounting and non-Calgary account reps out there. They have also ordered IT to vacate their server room and find a way to make everything fit in a 5x9 telephone room, which is also accessible only via the ladies washroom and two of three boardrooms are being eliminated with the suggestion that meetings be held at client sites when practical or "affordable restaurants."

Company B: The BSD's in Houston landed their little brother in Calgary an enormous contract without a tremendous amount of consultation. They now need to hire about 70 people, immediately. Which is a challenge in and of itself. Splitting locations isn't an option since many existing employees will also work on this large project. They are now harassing every other tenant in the building trying to put together bits and pieces of space at any price.

It is like when unemployment gets too low, things just cease up.

It's almost as if companies should start entertaining the idea of planning for more than 6-12 months into the future, in terms of size/staffing. And maybe carrying a bit more expense on the books during the lean times, so they're not in crisis mode every single time things get good again.

And so hence why Alberta will be seemingly perpetually F'd. The boom and bust cycles are just so horrible on labour and costs.

So, in a couple years we can expect a 30-something floor office tower go up. This will be the extent of Montreal's "office boom".

Office space markets are a funny thing. Calgary had near zero office vacancy for a long time before a shovel actually hit the ground for a new tower. Now with the vacancy rate getting low (but nothing like we saw from 2005-2007) we are seeing two office towers going ahead.

maybe they learned a lesson? and so now they are willing to build on spec before they actually need it in the most desperate way. that way of building sucks and the buildings go up way to late. Calgary has acutely lost potential head office movement because of this. that is almost a guarantee. when you know the city will require more space then allow for developers to go forward with a great proposal instead of hindering such proposals to the point of loosing potential business for the city.