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  #201  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 4:26 PM
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Originally Posted by koops65 View Post
Thanks...

Here is an opener -

Didn't I read somewhere on SSP last week, by Cal I think, about the lot beside The One being sold for huge $$$?
Wasn't me.

But yeah, Scotiabank. They finally sold, but only for $74 million.

Was $100 million possible?
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  #202  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 6:34 PM
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I'm surprised that no one is talking about the savage beating the Calgary's downtown commercial real estate market is taking. As someone who works in the industry with a company that manages a number of properties down there, I've seen no shortage of anxiety as the market continues to take direct body blows. I think vacancy rate now is at about 30% ? Calgary's downtown office towers lost something in the range of $6 billion in value in the last two years, the Bow alone is worth $400 million less than the cost to build it

Edmonton is faring better for the moment with a +/- 18% vacancy rate but the storm is coming here soon, we expect to see vacancy rates skyrocket in the coming year

It's like talking about Trump, it just makes me sad so I avoid it.

I've never seen anything like the vacancy issue in Calgary, as far as I can tell it is unprecedented in this generation.
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  #203  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 7:02 PM
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I am quite enjoying watching Calgary's commercial real estate crash in the downtown core, as it is the only thing that will truly attract large companies outside of oil and gas to invest in operations here.

Big banks are part of it (seen here), but I expect "new normal" lower price stability to attract more diverse operations going forward, including some hopeful American expansions.

While we can all weep for the poor landlords and building managers who bought their properties at the height of the boom and are losing money in 2017 right now, for me, it is much more important to attract diverse operations and diverse businesses into this city than it is to getting back to the old days of oil and gas overpaying for real estate and pushing everybody out to the suburbs, such that the only companies that have future staffing needs beyond the low rise fringes would be forced to leave the city.

Calgary is in a very unique position among major cities in that we are overflowing with office space on a level that can be a boon to growing huge companies with expansive operations that need a centralized workforce. Until Calgary makes some major deals to lease it's commercial real estate to some major non-oil and gas clients, I fully welcome the high vacancy rate and corresponding downward pressure on prices.
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  #204  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 7:44 PM
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Originally Posted by geotag277 View Post
I am quite enjoying watching Calgary's commercial real estate crash in the downtown core, as it is the only thing that will truly attract large companies outside of oil and gas to invest in operations here.

Big banks are part of it (seen here), but I expect "new normal" lower price stability to attract more diverse operations going forward, including some hopeful American expansions.

While we can all weep for the poor landlords and building managers who bought their properties at the height of the boom and are losing money in 2017 right now, for me, it is much more important to attract diverse operations and diverse businesses into this city than it is to getting back to the old days of oil and gas overpaying for real estate and pushing everybody out to the suburbs, such that the only companies that have future staffing needs beyond the low rise fringes would be forced to leave the city.

Calgary is in a very unique position among major cities in that we are overflowing with office space on a level that can be a boon to growing huge companies with expansive operations that need a centralized workforce. Until Calgary makes some major deals to lease it's commercial real estate to some major non-oil and gas clients, I fully welcome the high vacancy rate and corresponding downward pressure on prices.
The immense costs of moving a business are not justified by temporarily low office rents. If that were the case Detroit would have been overflowing with corporate relocations over the last few decades.

I'm afraid for Calgary's sake the fix for this is going to have to be a home grown one.
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  #205  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 7:52 PM
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Originally Posted by geotag277 View Post
I am quite enjoying watching Calgary's commercial real estate crash in the downtown core, as it is the only thing that will truly attract large companies outside of oil and gas to invest in operations here.

Big banks are part of it (seen here), but I expect "new normal" lower price stability to attract more diverse operations going forward, including some hopeful American expansions.

While we can all weep for the poor landlords and building managers who bought their properties at the height of the boom and are losing money in 2017 right now, for me, it is much more important to attract diverse operations and diverse businesses into this city than it is to getting back to the old days of oil and gas overpaying for real estate and pushing everybody out to the suburbs, such that the only companies that have future staffing needs beyond the low rise fringes would be forced to leave the city.

Calgary is in a very unique position among major cities in that we are overflowing with office space on a level that can be a boon to growing huge companies with expansive operations that need a centralized workforce. Until Calgary makes some major deals to lease it's commercial real estate to some major non-oil and gas clients, I fully welcome the high vacancy rate and corresponding downward pressure on prices.
Calgary is at an advantage to attract new start ups to set up and develop non energy related offices in Calgary. It takes time though. I would not put too much faith in a hail mary pass, a major relocation, unless the government throws in millions in incentives. I can't think of a situation where cheap rent is enough. There always cheaper space in suburban Toronto too.

I don't see any point to the Scotiabank reference. It's a relocation within the city. It doesn't really do anything to alleviate the office glut.

I feel everyone is still pushing the pause button hopeful for a quick turnaround in Calgary. Probably be another years or two and more space returned to the landlords that we may even see entire buildings shuttered and stricken from the inventory.
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  #206  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 9:39 PM
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Cheap rent is part of it, and indeed, not a great pull and furthermore not anything unique to Calgary. The unique thing about Calgary is the volume of space, which puts confidence in deep initial investments which have the potential to grow operations.

I'm not sure why you think I'm advocating for wholesale moving of operations, I am focused only on expansion, and how Calgary, through a combination of cheap rents and sheer volume of office space (along with being a major city, with a major university, and a young educated workforce) is an attractive candidate for big players to diversify their operations and especially American companies thinking about expanding office space into Canada.

The Scotiabank announcement was not just about moving, but about growing as well:

Quote:
“We conducted a full RFP to determine the best available space for our growing offices in Western Canada, and to ensure that we had access to the most up to date tools and technology to provide an excellent customer and employee experience in our new space. Brookfield Place met each one of our goals and we look forward to serving our customers from this premier location.”
Start ups and all that are great as well, but realistically investments today will take decades to turn into enterprises with the financial clout whereby it makes sense to lease and move into full floor AAA office space downtown.

The bigger play with this office vacancy today is enticing large cap operation expansion with Calgary's advantages. Scotiabank is part of it, but if we can get 10-20 other deals like that to ensure some level of diversification, we would be looking at more like 15% office space vacancy. With a slight upturn in oil and gas, that could be sustainable in no time.

How long does it take to make that many deals? I'm not sure, maybe 5 years, given stable pricing. As such, I don't mind riding out this current wave of office space glut (not to mention lower commercial rates make companies like mine more profitable by default).

As much as I like pretty buildings and skyscrapers, I'm a Calgary resident first and skyscraper fan second, so if we lose some tall commercial buildings downtown as a sacrifice for 5 years of diversification, that's a great deal IMO.
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  #207  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2017, 11:40 PM
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Originally Posted by geotag277 View Post
Cheap rent is part of it, and indeed, not a great pull and furthermore not anything unique to Calgary. The unique thing about Calgary is the volume of space, which puts confidence in deep initial investments which have the potential to grow operations.

I'm not sure why you think I'm advocating for wholesale moving of operations, I am focused only on expansion, and how Calgary, through a combination of cheap rents and sheer volume of office space (along with being a major city, with a major university, and a young educated workforce) is an attractive candidate for big players to diversify their operations and especially American companies thinking about expanding office space into Canada.

The Scotiabank announcement was not just about moving, but about growing as well:



Start ups and all that are great as well, but realistically investments today will take decades to turn into enterprises with the financial clout whereby it makes sense to lease and move into full floor AAA office space downtown.

The bigger play with this office vacancy today is enticing large cap operation expansion with Calgary's advantages. Scotiabank is part of it, but if we can get 10-20 other deals like that to ensure some level of diversification, we would be looking at more like 15% office space vacancy. With a slight upturn in oil and gas, that could be sustainable in no time.

How long does it take to make that many deals? I'm not sure, maybe 5 years, given stable pricing. As such, I don't mind riding out this current wave of office space glut (not to mention lower commercial rates make companies like mine more profitable by default).

As much as I like pretty buildings and skyscrapers, I'm a Calgary resident first and skyscraper fan second, so if we lose some tall commercial buildings downtown as a sacrifice for 5 years of diversification, that's a great deal IMO.
C'mon. Scotiabank are moving an office from one building to another. Your overstating that the new lease happen to be larger and it's an unknown quantity.

Yeah, it could take the better part of a decade or more for start ups to reach the point of significance but, the only real short term solution is for oil and gas to boom and absorb the space at record levels.

The amount of available space is unique, devastating from a Canadian perspective. It is not when expanding to include the overbuilding US. Wages in Calgary remain bloated vestiges of the oil boom and its geographical isolation still has relevance in any number of industries. It's a small local market to set up as a base and the highly specialized positions are all oil and gas experienced.

Rents are only cheap from a Calgary perspective and for the premium class of office building. Companies that place cheap rent high on their list probably have location, building class lower on the list.
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  #208  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2017, 7:44 PM
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No bidders for Trump tower in Toronto. Ownership likely to fall into investment firm that loaned project $300M.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle34215006/
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  #209  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2017, 10:50 PM
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No one wants to be associated with a crusty Cheeto.

Makes sense.
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  #210  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2017, 10:57 PM
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Doubtful new ownership would be contractually obliged to keep the Trump name or that it would hold up in court. The units have also been for sale a lot longer than Trump has been posting on twitter. It's the tower in tandem with the location that offers very limited possibilities to make money. That was always my fear.
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  #211  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 3:20 PM
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Tim's moving HQ:

Quote:
TORONTO — Tim Hortons is moving its headquarters from Oakville, Ont. to downtown Toronto.

The fast food company says it will relocate to a 6000 square-metre space in the Exchange Tower in the city’s financial district.

Tim Hortons president Alex Macedo says the move will bring it closer to business partners, enable it to better use technology to serve customers and help it keep abreast of industry trends.

Macedo says all 400 employees at the Oakville headquarters will be transferred to the Toronto location at the end of the year.

Macedo says the move is a “very exciting moment” for the company, which has been located in Oakville for more than 50 years.

“Consumer trends are changing very fast. We want to remain an innovative company,” he says. “We want to be able to react to guest changing behaviours so we thought being positioned in Toronto would allow us to do that.”

According to Macedo, employees at the headquarters were pleased with the news.

He says half live in Toronto and half reside outside the city, but all of them are excited about how the move will help the brand evolve.


Ever since RBI (Brazilian parent company) bought Tims and moved Burger King from Miami to the same Oakville HQ, it seems Tims has gotten very "corporate". I believe RBI's philosophy is to buy up companies and streamline their operations through greater efficiencies and yada yada yada.

Ever since, many franchisees feel more and more disenfranchised. The corporate overlords are running the show now and half the franchise owners are pissed. A bunch of them are suing. Tims feels less and less like a community or small town coffee shop and more and more like just another corporate franchise location.

So the move from Oakville to DT TO seems to fit in line with the shift to being more corporate. I also happen to walk through First Exchange Tower from time to time to buy BK, which has been beside the TH in the food court from well before they merged. Now they can knock down the wall between the two and create corporate synergy!

I was talking to another Oakville resident about this and we guessed that Tims is also trying to get younger. By moving HQ to DT, they can attract the millennials, which is apparently a big trend in CRE. Lots of offices moving to DT locations, reversing the trend of moving out to the suburbs. By bringing in younger people, they will have fresher ideas on how to attract young people into Tims stores and gradually diversify the demographic more. Pull some of youths out of Starbucks and bring them in to Hortons to mix it up with Joe Average who pops in to get his morning coffee and sit down to read the newspaper before his shift starts.

Oakville is not great for young people. Not a whole lot to do. In either place, these young people won't find much affordability, but at least in DT TO, you can rent a condo and walk to work and have fun after work. The Wyecroft location in Oakville is industrial and you have to drive or take limited transit:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.44597.../data=!3m1!1e3

Last edited by megadude; Apr 19, 2018 at 3:44 PM.
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  #212  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 3:30 PM
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Kind of an odd location for them. You don't see many retail companies in the Financial Core.


As long as they don't stick a Tim Horton's logo on the building it's all good.
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  #213  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 3:31 PM
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Kind of an odd location for them. You don't see many retail companies in the Financial Core.


As long as they don't stick a Tim Horton's logo on the building it's all good.
They needed to be in a taller building so the death spiral could last longer ....
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  #214  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 4:14 PM
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I just asked around, apparently they're taking the 3rd and 4th floors. What "business partners" do they have in the core that they need to be so close to?
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  #215  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 4:23 PM
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Originally Posted by megadude View Post


I was talking to another Oakville resident about this and we guessed that Tims is also trying to get younger. By moving HQ to DT, they can attract the millennials, which is apparently a big trend in CRE. Lots of offices moving to DT locations, reversing the trend of moving out to the suburbs. By bringing in younger people, they will have fresher ideas on how to attract young people into Tims stores and gradually diversify the demographic more. Pull some of youths out of Starbucks and bring them in to Hortons to mix it up with Joe Average who pops in to get his morning coffee and sit down to read the newspaper before his shift starts.
This is a huge factor for a ton of companies. The GTA's transit is so reliant on Union Station as the focal point of both the subway and the GO Train. Being located within walking distance of Union is really the only way to give you access to the entire commuter base of the GTA. With Toronto housing pretty much unattainable for Millennials, locating yourself somewhere that is equally accessible from Milton as it is from Pickering is a big plus.
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  #216  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 5:21 PM
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Good points.

Not sure how this keeps them closer to partners and abreast of industry trends given that it's restaurant retail.

And I have shot down a couple of job prospects midtown and uptown because I come in from the burbs. Not about to take GO and then TTC to Bloor. And not about to drive on the 401. Unless they doubled my salary!
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  #217  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 6:52 PM
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It really has become a downtown-or-bust kind of mentality in recent years. Obviously this is preferable to suburban office park sprawl, but it almost swings too far in the other direction. In my opinion, the ideal urban framework is multi-nodal in nature. When Yonge & Eglinton is considered too fringe, either because of transit access or lack of amenities, there's a problem with how our city is connected.
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  #218  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2018, 8:35 PM
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It really has become a downtown-or-bust kind of mentality in recent years. Obviously this is preferable to suburban office park sprawl, but it almost swings too far in the other direction. In my opinion, the ideal urban framework is multi-nodal in nature. When Yonge & Eglinton is considered too fringe, either because of transit access or lack of amenities, there's a problem with how our city is connected.
Always has been the intention to link all of the GTA "hubs" with transit but this is flawed because there is a false intention that jobs will automatically follow (sans Scarborough Centre).

A better approach would link all of the job clusters already in place with transit. The Airport area, for example, is the 2nd larget job cluster in the GTA with little to no transit access.
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  #219  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2018, 2:04 AM
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Kind of an odd location for them. You don't see many retail companies in the Financial Core.


As long as they don't stick a Tim Horton's logo on the building it's all good.
This got me thinking. Tims is the most iconic of all Canadian companies. You'd think they'd want their HO to be branded. They have their own stand alone building now, but when they move into the Exchange Tower, they'll be in a building that is more known for being the home of the Toronto Stock Exchange. And the Exchange Tower is part of First Canadian Place, which is most identified with by the BMO building, which was tallest in the city.

Then I thought of other iconic Canadian retail chains. First ones off the top of my head were CT, Shoppers, Pizza Pizza and Roots. Pictures below.

Considering that the Exchange Tower is rather plain looking, maybe Tims does pay to get their sign put up on top.



https://corp.canadiantire.ca/English...e/default.aspx


https://www.emporis.com/buildings/16...toronto-canada


https://thetorontoblog.com/2012/02/1..._3-dscf3426-2/


https://www.blogto.com/fashion_style...sign_district/


https://canadify.com/2018/04/17/afte...ng-to-toronto/


https://twitter.com/hashtag/timhortons


http://www.espacelistings.com/detail...30FF89024D2%7D

Last edited by megadude; Apr 20, 2018 at 2:28 AM.
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  #220  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2018, 2:32 AM
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Forgot about The Bay. This is their HO in Brampton.


Bryon Johnson
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