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  #1  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 3:55 PM
GreatTallNorth2 GreatTallNorth2 is offline
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WSIB Head Office Moving to London

The province has announced that it is moving the head office of the WSIB from Front Street in downtown Toronto to London. They are currently in a 600,000 square foot building, so not sure how many employees or how much space they would need, but this has to be really good news for London.

https://www.thestar.com/business/202...ondon-ont.html
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  #2  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 5:01 PM
jammer139 jammer139 is offline
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This is great news. Wonder where they may be looking? Could it be a new build or lease of existing space?


Certainly they don't need as much space anymore given the new reality of work from home office models being adopted everywhere. Cost of living is also much less in London then in the GTA so would not be surprised many employees would relocate out of GTA area.

Last edited by jammer139; Apr 26, 2022 at 5:35 PM.
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  #3  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 5:43 PM
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Last edited by jammer139; Apr 26, 2022 at 6:05 PM.
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  #4  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 6:07 PM
GreatTallNorth2 GreatTallNorth2 is offline
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If this actually happens, this is much bigger news than Amazon opening and creating 2000 jobs. I assume the workers/office would be downtown which means a new tower would probably have to be built. The one in toronto is 600,000 sqaure feet. They won't just divide the staff between multiple buildings in London.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 6:20 PM
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Article says 3,000 employees. Is indeed a big deal. Hydro One did the same thing a few years ago and decamped Toronto for Bowmanville, building a large new office building in a suburban office park.

Also - no way, even before COVID, should 3,000 employees be needing 650,000 sf.

Modern space allocations would see that accommodated in about 500,000sf. Still significant though for sure.

Hopefully they are accommodated downtown, though they will likely need new build space to secure that large of a lease. For comparison, One London Place is 350,000sf. If they do move downtown it would likely be the largest office building in Downtown London.

Also - holy crap, I was not aware WSIB needed that many employees.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 6:45 PM
inimrepus inimrepus is offline
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For a comparison according to the Sifton website One London Place has about 282,000 square feet of office space. So even if they open a head office here with a third of what they have now it would be significant for London.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 6:55 PM
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The two London City Centre towers are 550,000sf roughly. So WSIB would need essentially a new London City Centre to accommodate itself, more or less.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:08 PM
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I know the Bell building downtown, when originally built, was designed so that it could be heightened to accommodate any further office needs. As I understand it, some of Bell is moving so perhaps this would be an option.

This would allow for faster and cheaper construction as well as take empty office space off the market. It's downtown location right along Dundas and the BRT is also ideal. I don't also think parking should be an issue as I have always thought that the best place for a new downtown city-owned parking garage would be the space behind the Bell building which borders Queen. It's dead space and is not suitable for residential.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:17 PM
jammer139 jammer139 is offline
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I very much doubt the head office space they will need will be more then 50,000 sq Ft. They appear to be announcing the move of the head office to London and I suspect de-centralizing and down-sizing their Toronto office space needs. Will likely keep a much smaller office in GTA and may open satellite offices in other cities.


In the end I suspect they will have a much smaller office footprint. The key thing is the work from home model will likely result in about 60% less sq footage being required. What the final percentage will be is yet to be determined.


Still a win for London.


Also the mention of de-centralizing other Ontario agencies and boards out of Toronto is great news. There is no reason not to locate these public service jobs in other cities to take advantage of cheaper rents and cost of living and attract workers who don't want to deal with the costs of living in GTA.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:19 PM
GreatTallNorth2 GreatTallNorth2 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jammer139 View Post
I very much doubt the head office space they will need will be more then 50,000 sq Ft. They appear to be announcing the move of the head office to London and I suspect de-centralizing and down-sizing their Toronto office space needs. Will likely keep a much smaller office in GTA and may open satellite offices in other cities.
That does not seem to be what the press release indicates. Obviously we have no idea, but they said they are moving the head office to London, not creating an office and then adding a bunch of satellite offices.

"Moving the WSIB to London literally will move thousands of jobs here. Possibly it will create local jobs as well,” McNaughton said." (from Global News)
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  #11  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:36 PM
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The new office reality is work from home. Whatever the final details turn out to be the amount of space is going to be way less.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:43 PM
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Originally Posted by jammer139 View Post
The new office reality is work from home. Whatever the final details turn out to be the amount of space is going to be way less.
office market trends are showing a small reduction of office space demand, but not anything major like 50%. Most offices are continuing with dedicated employee workspaces and the same office footprints they had before, and simply allowing workers to bring their laptops home 1-2 days a week.

Knowing the PC's they may try to pull a fast one to minimize their footprint to save a few dollars, but that isn't the wider trend for office footprints. Definitely a shrinking footprint, which has been the trend for a while even pre-covid, but not anything major like 1/10th the space they once had.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 7:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jammer139 View Post
The new office reality is work from home. Whatever the final details turn out to be the amount of space is going to be way less.
office market trends are showing a small reduction of office space demand, but not anything major like 50%. Most offices are continuing with dedicated employee workspaces and the same office footprints they had before, and simply allowing workers to bring their laptops home 1-2 days a week.

Knowing the PC's they may try to pull a fast one to minimize their footprint to save a few dollars, but that isn't the wider trend for office footprints. Definitely a shrinking footprint, which has been the trend for a while even pre-covid, but not anything major like 1/10th the space they once had.

The Toronto office market has already returned to net space absorption over the last 2 quarters at levels greater than those seen in 2019, for example, as many companies lease back space they closed during the pandemic.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 8:00 PM
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That is a really big deal and a shocking amount of employees for WSIB, but don't expect a new office building downtown. London has a 30% office vacancy rate. There's a lot more than 500k sf free around town. There's no way that many employees will be consolidated in one building, existing or new so they'll probably target a few downtown locations with large vacancies.
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  #15  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 8:01 PM
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https://www.computerworld.com/articl...territory.html


Depending on the sector the occupancy rates are way down. In the Tech sector the ability to work from home in another city is way up and a must have in order to attract and retain employees. It will be a long time if ever before we see the same office space leasing and occupancy volumes again.


Given many office leases are 5-10 years in length the renewals for many are still in the future. Many will be looking for newer and smaller spaces.
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  #16  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 8:10 PM
GreatTallNorth2 GreatTallNorth2 is offline
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Originally Posted by johnnyhamont View Post
That is a really big deal and a shocking amount of employees for WSIB, but don't expect a new office building downtown. London has a 30% office vacancy rate.
I don't think any of us know exactly what will happen, but to think that WSIB is going to locate in 5-10 different buildings scattered around town is not reality either. They will want one building to accommodate their staff. Will it be a shiny 40 floor tower? Probably not. But could it be a new 25 floor tower? Maybe.
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  #17  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 9:28 PM
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They take up 600,000 sqft of space in Simcoe Place (200 Front Street), a 148m (33s) tower, which has 750,000 sqft total. While there is potential that they could condense the square footage down a bit, there is a very good chance that they are going to need an entirely new building so they can get AAA office space to accommodate their 3,000 employees with room for future expansion. Nothing in London could come close to satisfying that capacity, and even still, I don't think any office towers in London are considered higher than Class A. Simcoe Place is considered Class A, and I don't think they'd move everyone to 5-10 mediocre buildings instead of building a new tower that will take care of future needs for years to come. The vacancy rate still goes down if new, full office space is added to the market.

Regardless of what happens, this is going to be fantastic for London. I am excited to see more government services get decentralized from Toronto. It's time to spread the love to the mid-sized cities.
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  #18  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 10:30 PM
Djeffery Djeffery is offline
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Someone dust off the plans for Two London Place.

But seriously, there is no way this city approves a new office tower that would be occupied within the next 10 years. Why do we assume downtown anyway? You can bet the owners of Westmount Mall just perked up. They'd have no problem moving the retail out of the main floor of the old Sears and making a 2 floor deal with WSIB, and into the mall if needed.
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Old Posted Apr 26, 2022, 11:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Djeffery View Post
Someone dust off the plans for Two London Place.

But seriously, there is no way this city approves a new office tower that would be occupied within the next 10 years. Why do we assume downtown anyway? You can bet the owners of Westmount Mall just perked up. They'd have no problem moving the retail out of the main floor of the old Sears and making a 2 floor deal with WSIB, and into the mall if needed.
The city doesn't even have to be a part of it. The province has the power to issue an MZO whenever it wants. So, in theory if the province found a developer to work with, they could issue whatever rezoning they want for a piece of downtown land to expedite the process of construction.

The WSIB is most certainly not moving from downtown Toronto into the old Sears at Westmount lmao.
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  #20  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2022, 1:39 AM
GreatTallNorth2 GreatTallNorth2 is offline
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Originally Posted by ericmacm View Post
the city doesn't even have to be a part of it. The province has the power to issue an mzo whenever it wants. So, in theory if the province found a developer to work with, they could issue whatever rezoning they want for a piece of downtown land to expedite the process of construction.

The wsib is most certainly not moving from downtown toronto into the old sears at westmount lmao.
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