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Originally Posted by borkborkbork
do you think the glut of class B/C space downtown created by TNS will start to pull some businesses currently in suburban office parks downtown by making downtown office space more affordable relative to the suburbs?
or do are those businesses largely located where they are because the staff prefer to be in the burbs/dont want to deal with parking/etc?
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I think it is doubtful businesses that choose to locate outside downtown will be attracted to relocate to downtown under any circumstances. One example that comes to mind is Western Surgery Center. They used to be located in 444 St Marys. They operated essentially a private operating room for low risk procedures. They have a giant new buildings on Sterling Lyon Parkway. Another example is the insurance company that left the Portage and Broadway area to relocate to Polo Park citing employee safety and parking issues. How about AAA Alarms monitoring center in the Kennaston business park, it is easily something that could be in a downtown office especially at BellMTS frees up a lot of their own space yet they stay firmly in the suburbs.
Outside of law offices, there isn't the local business to business interaction that needs to be done in person happening in Winnipeg that would give downtown the critical mass to make that a priority. Toss in that mid-sized businesses often have senior people making decisions based on where they live and want the offices close to home.
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In terms of Skip's exit from the Exchange, Ubisoft Winnipeg could be a contender to take over some of the space. They are still somewhat under the radar and seem to continue to be growing their local employee base. They also identified the Exchange as where they wanted to be when they first setup here. If Skip is vacating some premium spaces in the Exchange and would be suited the Ubisoft and there is an opportunity to get in at a discount I could definitely see that happening.
The other I have talked about before is the governments of Winnipeg and Manitoba both need to get behind the idea of blasting grants/tax credits at small tech startups to get them wanting to be here and grow here. I am sure if Skip wanted to move to another city they could get bidding like Amazon had happening but on a smaller scale. We need to focus on getting small companies here and helping them stay here through their growth phase to the point they are employing several thousand people like Skip now does. Landing those big employees is something we will never win at as citizens.