Performance Court (150 Elgin) | 90.5m | 21 fl | Completed

[waterloowarrior]

@davidreevely 1m https://twitter.com/davidreevely/sta...00906198904833
The city’s rail office will be moving into a 12,000-square foot office on the 21st floor of the new Morguard building at 160 Elgin.

[J.OT13]

Morguard opens doors to Performance Court tonight

Tom PechloffPublished on June 18, 2014

A 10-year process comes to an end Wednesday night when Morguard Corp. officially opens the doors to 21-story Performance Court at 150 Elgin St.

About 250 people were expected to attend the ceremonies, which were slated to begin with a welcome from an Algonquin chief. That pays tribute to the fact the building lies on unceded Algonquin territory. A birch bark canoe will also be unveiled.

Stephen Taylor, president and COO of Morguard Investments Ltd., and Ottawa mayor Jim Watson are also expected to be on hand.

“It’s exciting,” said Morguard’s Senior Vice President of Development Margaret Knowles. “It’s been a long haul on this one, a lot longer than people think. The construction was about two years, but we bought that site from the city after a design competition gave us the right to buy the site.”

That was in 2004.

Fast forward to today. The lead tenant, the Canada Council for the Arts, is established on the first seven floors.

The council’s director and CEO, Robert Sirman, says the council and Morguard worked together on the plans for the entire construction period and said council’s deal with Morguard works for both sides.

The council does not rent the space. Instead, it gets the space in exchange for programming all the art found throughout the public space, including the three-story digital wall, in a deal that runs for the next 20 years.

Morguard and other tenants such as KPMG also rent art from the council’s art bank.

The New Zealand High Commission and Scone Witch have already occupied their respective spaces.

Ottawa Tourism will move in this summer, Shopify this fall and CIBC will take over the top three floors later this year.

The 360,000-square-foot tower is now 90 per cent leased, with the 12th and 13th floors available as well as some smaller units in mixed-tenant floors, said Ms. Knowles.

The new tower sits in from Elgin Street, between two heritage buildings, the First Baptist Church and Grant House, former home of Friday’s Roast Beef House.

In the fall, Stephen Beckta will be moving his restaurant to Grant House. For Mr. Beckta, a lifer along Elgin Street, it has personal and professional significance.

“Beckta needs to be on a bigger stage, something more significant,” said Mr. Beckta, who was catering Wednesday night’s event. “When we first opened Beckta 11 years ago, we didn’t know if three people would walk through the door. Now that we have a track record and shown what we can do, we need to put it in its rightful place, and I really think this is the greatest stage we could ever have in Ottawa.”

The OBJ was given a tour of the complex ahead of today’s official opening. Walk in the front door and you are greeted by the Winter Garden, a nod to the fact that even though summer is three days away, winter is never too far away from the city.

The massive digital wall is interactive and Ms.Knowles said Morguard will use it as its LEED education kiosk.

“Folks can go up to it and pull our LEED story, measure our energy usage and that kind of thing,” she said.

Energy usage is of utmost importance to both landlord and tenant.

“We’ve gone after energy efficiency, we’ve gone after things that are meaningful to our tenants. We’re going to deliver somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 60 per cent reduction in energy costs, so that translates to over a buck and a half (per square foot) in terms of reductions that we’re expecting,” said Ms. Knowles.

There is a massive cistern underground that allows Morguard to manage its stormwater, cleaning it and reusing it in washrooms up to the seventh floor.

Ms. Knowles said this is one way the building performs. The name Performance Court refers to performing up to LEED standards and performing to give tenants high-efficiency work spaces, not to mention the artistic performance possibilities the public spaces potentially provide.

“We’re really talking about performance in a much more holistic way than we ever have before,” she said.

Up on the 15th floor, KPMG is just settling in after their Monday move. Office managing partner Grant McDonald said the LEED standard is one of the attractions, adding his group is not going to stop at gold. It is targeting LEED platinum status and if successful, it would be the first KPMG office in the country to reach that status.

He said KPMG has a history, in his 30 years with the company, of choosing new buildings instead of retrofits whenever it is time for a move.

“It’s less disruptive,” he said. “We closed the office Friday at 3 we were up and running here Monday morning at 8 o’clock.”

The stunning view and bright, quiet workplace are also incentives for staff, as is the terrace, one of the biggest high-floor terraces in the city.

To get up to the 15th floor, you use the destination dispatch elevator service that project manager Peter Weiss of PCL Constructors called a coming trend. It uses algorithms to calculate where people go to minimize the time you actually spend on the elevator.

“Time is money,” Mr.Weiss said.

http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-re...onight%0D%0A/1

[Radster]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-re...onight%0D%0A/1

The stunning view and bright, quiet workplace are also incentives for staff, as is the terrace, one of the biggest high-floor terraces in the city.

Is that terrace accessible to the public, anyone know?

[J.OT13]

From their website:

7th Floor Public Roof Terrace

Situated on top of the building’s podium on the 7th floor and overlooking Elgin Street is the Performance Court public roof top terrace.

At over 6,000 SF, the public roof top terrace will be an exciting amenity for tenants of the building, the Ottawa community and visitors to the nation’s capital. It will be publically accessible from the Winter Garden and underground parking levels via two separate elevators and will be open both during and after regular business hours.

The public roof top terrace will contain a mixture of both hard and soft landscaping, making it a welcome respite for activities ranging from quiet lunches to special events. A BBQ and fireplace will also be provided to further enhance the enjoyment of the space. Similar to the Elgin Pocket Park, native and drought resident plant material will be used to reduce the need for irrigation.

The public roof top terrace will also provide breathtaking views of the Ottawa area, including views of Confederation Park, the Rideau Canal, City Hall, the National Arts Centre, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, and more.

http://150elgin.com/building/public-green-spaces/

[Kitchissippi]

What's the deal with the BBQ, is it something that's operated by a vendor or a grill-you-own type of affair. I need to know before I head out there with my own steak in hand

[waterloowarrior]

here's a pic of the terrace

https://twitter.com/150elgin/status/477458376297689089

[MountainView]

Not sure if already mentioned but the top floor facade has a large KPMG sign facing Elgin Street. Tried to take a picture but it was late on Saturday night and it didn't turn out on my phone.

[acottawa]

I was walking by there today and thought I would check out the terrace. The security guard said people can't just go up there and they have to be on the list. Was my mistake asking permission or is this thing not really open to the public?

[citydwlr]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I was walking by there today and thought I would check out the terrace. The security guard said people can't just go up there and they have to be on the list. Was my mistake asking permission or is this thing not really open to the public?

It was my understanding that it would be open to the public as well. I suspect the resistance from the security guard has something to do with delegates from the One Young World Summit being in town:

From OBJ:

The summit’s three-member selection committee touches down in Ottawa Monday [June 23rd, 2014]. The committee’s itinerary kicks off Tuesday morning with a flag-raising at City Hall.

Other events on the agenda include a rooftop reception on the seventh-floor terrace at newly opened Performance Court at 150 Elgin St. and the Mayor’s Breakfast Thursday morning at City Hall.

Try again in a few days...or next week.

[Urbanarchit]

Performance Court by Shel DeF on Flickr

[rocketphish]

New Ottawa Tourism office opens on Elgin Street

Michael Woods, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 11, 2014, Last Updated: August 11, 2014 6:21 PM EDT



Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mayor Jim Watson and other dignitaries were on hand Monday to officially open Ottawa Tourism’s new digs in one of the city’s newest buildings.

At a ceremony on the seventh-floor balcony of the Morguard building at 150 Elgin Street, Watson said the new space will provide the not-for-profit organization with a better facility to showcase the city’s tourism assets.

The 6,300 square feet of space for Ottawa Tourism’s 32 employees is a far cry from the original vision for the building.

The city sold the property at Elgin and Gloucester streets for $6.6 million in 2005. Owner Morguard Elgin originally planned to build a mixed-use residential building with space for a concert hall owned and operated by the Ottawa Chamber Music Society.

But without private-sector support, the concert hall vision died. In 2011, council approved a new plan for an office tower, but stipulated that the city and owner had to negotiate a new public benefit option, either in actual space or in the form of a financial contribution of equivalent value — in the city’s view, no more than $1.3 million.

The city and Morguard then negotiated the space for the Ottawa Tourism offices, with Morguard’s $1.3-million public benefit contribution applied to the base rent as a credit over the term of the 10-year lease.

“Such an arrangement has allowed Ottawa Tourism to have the benefit of this new Class ‘A’ office space and location without any significant increase to its current operational budget,” Peter Radke, the city’s manager of realty initiatives and development, said in an email.

mwoods@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/michaelrwoods

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...n-elgin-street

[J.OT13]

Seeing the finished product, I'm very impressed with the building. Great balance between Performance Court, Place Bell, Lord Elgin and the Flaherty Building. The east CBD façade is now complete!

[rocketphish]

In Ottawa, office space apparently a 'public benefit'

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 13, 2014, Last Updated: August 13, 2014 5:42 PM EDT

When you hear the term “public benefit,” what springs to mind? Perhaps a community centre, or daycare (of which there’s a shortage in downtown Ottawa). Maybe an art gallery, or studios for artists to work. Affordable housing, certainly.

It is unlikely that you think of Class A office space for an organization, even a non-profit one, when listing uses that could be considered a public benefit.

But that’s exactly what’s happened with the city’s donation of $1.3 million worth of space in the beautiful new office building at 150 Elgin St.

Space that was supposed to be set aside for a now-defunct concert hall concept has been donated to Ottawa Tourism, which officially opened its new digs on the 7th floor of 150 Elgin St. this week with a visit from Premier Kathleen Wynne and Mayor Jim Watson.

How we went from concert hall to tourism offices is a somewhat tortuous tale. But this case study raises important policy issues surrounding the concept of a public benefit: Who gets to decide what exactly benefits the public?

Here’s a quick recap of the 150 Elgin situation. The city sold its property on Elgin — just south of Laurier Avenue and across from City Hall — to developer Morguard for $6.6 million in 2005. (Under the “hindsight is 20/20″ heading, many of us now wish the city had hung onto one of its last pieces of downtown property for a more community-friendly use, in particular a new central library.)

The sale was subject to some space being set aside for a public-benefit use, in particular in the arts and heritage spheres. The thinking at the time was that 150 Elgin would be a great location for a new concert hall. The city even set aside some funds for the project. But when the concert hall failed to materialize, Morguard understandably had to redesign its building.

The new design still had some public elements to it, including an indoor garden in the heritage-designated Grant House — formerly Friday’s Roast Beef House — a pocket park and a 6,000-square-foot terrace on the seventh floor, which is fully accessible to the public. (A quick Citizen City Hall bureau field trip found a charmingly landscaped balcony, which would be a lovely spot to eat lunch on a pleasant day. So make a point of using it, public — it’s apparently for your benefit! You can event rent the terrace, which is equipped with a large gas barbecue and fireplace, for private events.)

But the city still had more than 7,600 square feet of space coming to it under its public-benefits agreement with Morguard. Around this time last year, council agreed to transfer the $1.3 million value of the benefit from the city to Ottawa Tourism. The non-profit agency still has to pay rent to Morguard, but the $1.3 million rental subsidy over 10 years means the tourism-promotion group gets more space in the newest, swankiest office building in town without shelling out any extra dough.

Now, Ottawa Tourism does important work for the city, attracting tour groups and events as well as marketing the capital as a great place to visit. And no one begrudges the non-profit agency for needing more office space — its growth is a good sign. Naturally, the city should support tourism, which is why we give the group $900,000 a year to attract major events to the city. (Most of Ottawa Tourism’s funding comes from the private sector, such as hotels.)

But can subsidizing the group’s rent be considered a public benefit?

Hard to say conclusively. The city doesn’t officially define the term. The closest is a description of “community benefits” that falls under the so-called Section 37 agreements in the city’s official plan. It’s not an exhaustive list — and includes the disclaimer “not limited to” — but providing office space isn’t mentioned in the community-benefit guidelines.

Economic development projects have not traditionally been included in the concept of public or community — or whatever you want to call them — benefits. Maybe the notion of the public benefit needs to evolve, though, in which case voters should hear some discussion about it. If only there was some regularly scheduled exercise in democratic debate, preferably happening this fall, that might provide the ideal opportunity for our municipal politicians to hold forth on the changing concept.

Sometimes pressing circumstances spark creativity. An election campaign is the time to turn an improvised fix into a permanent policy — or to stop it from happening again.

jchianello@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/jchianello

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...-col-chianello

[1overcosc]

Saw Shopify logo on the Podium a couple days ago. This thing's getting crowded logo-wise.

[c_speed3108]

Shopify's office:


https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/128607...4/14922413334/

[teej1984]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

Shopify's office:


https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/128607...4/14922413334/

My first impression is, "WOW, that's in Ottawa!?" Very nice!

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

Shopify's office:


https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/128607...4/14922413334/

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

[rocketphish]

Ottawa's Shopify unveils new HQ: A mix of personality, creativity and booming business

Vito Pilieci, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 18, 2014, Last Updated: October 18, 2014 8:00 AM EDT

Video and Photo Album

Packed away in a box somewhere in the cavernous space that is Shopify’s new office at 150 Elgin St., is a plastic Guitar Hero controller.

The controller, which will soon become part of a 9th floor arcade, is important because it shows that while the Ottawa startup may be moving up, it certainly hasn’t moved on.

Shopify started out as a four-man shop located in a 500-square-foot bachelor apartment above the Bridgehead coffee shop on Elgin Street. The room was outfitted with a desk, four computers, a TV and an Xbox video game system, which played the game Guitar Hero. Today the firm employs 500 and its online shopping platform powers more than 120,000 shops around the world.

It’s become one of the fastest-growing commerce companies on the planet and now from its home in the nation’s capital competes with giants such as Amazon.

We hate cubicles….We want people to be happy and healthy.

A fresh round of capital, $100 million secured by the company in December, is allowing it to expand again. This time into a six floor, 102,000-square-foot space, which is ironically located only a few blocks north of the Bridgehead where Shopify first started out.

With the effects of the global economic slowdown still lingering, some companies are looking to conserve cash through belt tightening and the cutting back of employee perks. Shopify is instead raising the bar. Its new offices will have onsite chefs making free meals throughout the day to feed hungry staff members. A coffee bar has been added with espresso and cappuccino machines plus premium beans. A yoga studio is located next to office space; there’s an arcade; and there’s a race track for tricycles being built.

The idea of pampering employees isn’t new to the firm. It’s long offered catered lunches, home cleaning services for employees, free beer on tap and had a slide — yes, a slide — in its cafeteria to help employees break up their day.

“The founders of this company care very deeply about their staff and working conditions,” said Greg Scorsone, director of internal operations at Shopify. “We hate cubicles. You spend a lot of time at work during the day. We want people to be happy and healthy.”

The new digs are a big step up for the Ottawa startup that has overcome the odds over the past eight years to become the most successful startup in the nation’s capital.

In its fledgling days, the company wasn’t even focused on e-commerce. Shopify was created by founders Tobi Luetke and Scott Lake to sell snowboards in 2006.

The two thought there was an opportunity to sell snowboards at cutthroat rates online to enthusiasts all over the world. They had a pricing advantage because, unlike other snowboard sellers, they didn’t need stores or staff.

The plan was so successful that it caught the attention of major retail chains that complained to snowboard manufacturers about the low pricing.

The manufacturers eventually made it difficult for Luetke and Lake to keep operating. But the pair realized that, if a random website run by two guys in Ottawa could give major retailers fits, perhaps a major shift in the retail industry was afoot.

At the time, the only way for small businesses to sell online, without going through the hassle of creating customized websites, was to list goods on eBay. Amazon.com’s marketplace offerings were still in their infancy. So, Luetke and Lake set out to create an online option that would allow people with no technical skills to easily set up an online store and start selling goods in minutes. Shopify was born.

Earlier this year it extended its service, offering to include payment processing, and in August it added in-store point-of-sale terminals, making it possible for online sellers to set up anywhere they want, at a farmer’s market for instance, and still accept credit card payments from customers.

Expansion at the company has been a constant. It now has offices in Toronto and Montreal, however those behind it say they have no intention of moving its head offices from its hometown.

The new office has a different theme element woven through each floor. One floor is dedicated to streetscapes, with telephone booths, brick walls and faux house sidings lining the hallways.

Another is dedicated to the great outdoors, with bear-shaped bean bag pillows and a log cabin exteriors on meeting rooms. Luetke shares an office with other executives, a choice made by the management group to encourage collaboration and communication. Their “executive” office has been made to look like a ski shop. With helmets and various ski and snowboard paraphernalia scattered throughout the space. A mural of a snowboarder adorns the window, as a reminder of the company’s early days.

Office architect Andrew Reeves of LineBox Studio Inc. said creating an environment that helps employees relax, interact and get work done was a challenge that he eagerly took on.

Most companies would look at a space and try to figure out how many desks could be jammed into a space, he said.

“This is about redefining what the workplace actually is,” said Reeves while standing in the company’s coffee house. “It doesn’t matter if someone is working in their office or working here (in the coffee house). The point is they are working and being productive.”

vpilieci@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/Vpilieci

http://ottawacitizen.com/business/lo...oming-business

[McC]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

[B]Ottawa's Shopify unveils new HQ: A mix of personality, creativity and booming business

This time into a six floor, 102,000-square-foot space, which is ironically located only a few blocks north of the Bridgehead where Shopify first started out.

http://ottawacitizen.com/business/lo...oming-business

This isn't even ironic in the Alanis Morisette sense...

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by McC

This isn't even ironic in the Alanis Morisette sense...

I can't believe how many people misuse the word "ironic".