Average weekly - 72
Peak Day - Wednesday 83%
Low Day - Friday 41%
Thanksgiving through Christmas marks a busy time for business. The Index continues to monitor more attendance in offices downtown. The Articles of Interest, this week, reflect strengthening commercial office market trends. Issues raised during the height of COVID, ‘do we need office space’ and ‘the conversion frenzy’ are beginning to wane as markets recover and employees are spending more and more time in the office.
Congestion, however, continues to increase in the region largely due to population growth. Political attention on this issue is narrowly focused on the fight over bike lanes when the experts are calling for more attention to improving public transit. More transit use frees up space on our roads a win-win for both drivers and commuters. The low hanging fruit in the region is maximizing and coordinating all our transit networks.
Stay tuned for an announcement of a conference hosted by SRRA in the New Year on the Index and Congestion Solutions.
Enjoy this week’s Articles
Your SRRA Team
Links to Articles of Interest
Traffic Congestion in Toronto Really Is Getting Worse
International business leaders note that Toronto’s transit system is too small for a city our size. So says the head of the Toronto Region Board of Trade. The Globe commissioned traffic-analytics firm INRIX to review the data: they found that although more commuters are taking transit, travel times for drivers have increased dramatically. Car volumes have not increased significantly since before the pandemic, suggesting that the problem is reduced road capacity due to bottlenecks caused by many more vehicles delivering goods, food, groceries; roads squeezed by construction sites, lengthy repairs to major roads, and poor coordination between “public entities,” different ministries, utilities. An uptick in the size of vehicles doesn’t help, with SUVs and pickup trucks taking up more road space. (Neither does very low average vehicle occupancy.) The region’s top transportation expert, Prof Eric Miller, notes that congestion in major cities is to be expected and can be a sign of “economic health,” but when congestion passes a certain threshold, the impacts can be “detrimental.”
The Pendulum Swingeth….
Cushman and Wakefield in the U.S. is taking steps to prepare for a “market turnaround” that anticipates improved prospects for commercial real estate investors.
And in the GTA as well?
Avison Young comments on changing dynamics that show positive signs particularly in suburban parts of the GTA. “Workspace density is increasing again,” is the conclusion.
But Bid to Cut Red Tape Barrier to Office Conversions Voted Down
Bill 102, which recommended the removal of a section of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) that exempts changes to building use based on building height, was voted down by the government. A successful amendment to the EPA would have “cut red tape, speeding up conversions by up to two years,” according to its Liberal MPP proponent. According to JLL, downtown Toronto vacancy rates now exceed suburban rates. If the three preceding articles leave your head spinning, get in touch with SRRA’s Iain Dobson ([email protected]) for a reality check!
Bait and Switch? 65-storey Condo to Replace 13 Storey Office Building in the Financial District
The applicants describe this 65-storey condo as “mixed use,” but the office component included in an earlier iteration of the proposal that secured approval for a taller building has now been ditched in favour of more condo floors with lower ceiling heights! The applicant is asking for an exemption from the OP requirement to replace office space (a policy currently under review).
TMU Launches World’s First “Digitally-enabled building”
Toronto Metropolitan University’s SCITHub will “develop, test, and showcase the full range of smart building technologies to support the homes and offices of the future. There will be three areas of research in the building; smart city technology development, buildings for health and wellness of people and supporting net-zero carbon goals.”
Check a Report’s Sponsor Before Deciding…
The following conclusion sounds cut and dried: “Recent research conducted in a real company showed that employees who worked from home three days a week experienced higher satisfaction and lower attrition rates compared with their colleagues who worked from the office. This reduction in turnover saved millions of dollars in recruiting and training costs, thereby increasing profits for the company.” But this Harvard-inspired research was sponsored by Trip.com whose business model benefits from remote work.
Controversy Over Remote Work Productivity Continues
“When a manager says, ‘I need you to come back to the office,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘I lack the ability to work with you remotely.’ It reflects their skills, not your productivity,” says an Australian consultant.
This Article Worth Reading If Only To Learn a New Word
The concept being discussed is an idea to treat office space like a full-service hotel. The new word is “amenitized.” Really?
“The Occupancy Index is supported by the City of Toronto, Downtown Yonge BIA, and Downtown West BIA. It is a measure of the percentage of office employees returning to the office compared to the number of employees who would normally have come to their offices pre-COVID. For a detailed description of the calculation please contact Iain Dobson at [email protected],”