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View Full Version : [Kanata] RIM Office Building - 5 storeys [Site prep]


sgera
Nov 18, 2010, 4:26 PM
http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-residential/2010-11-12/article-1958438/RIM-clearing-site-of-proposed-office-building/1

RIM clearing site of proposed office building

Peter Kovessy RSS Feed
Ottawa Business Journal

Research in Motion (TSX:RIM) is clearing the land adjacent to one of its existing Kanata office buildings, leading some to suggest the BlackBerry maker is moving ahead with construction of a new five-storey building.

The Waterloo-based company first filed plans for the 122,450-square-foot office building on Innovation Drive, at Terry Fox Drive, in the spring of 2009.

At the time, RIM was said to be in need of additional space in the National Capital Region. It gained an additional 146,500 square feet this past May when the company subleased the former Dell call at 1001 Farrar Rd.

In April, RIM purchased Ottawa-based QNX Software, which produces the operating system that will power RIM’s new tablet computer, the BlackBerry PlayBook, which is expected to be released in the new year.

Sources say QNX owns its 60,000-square-foot building at 175 Terence Matthews Cres. However, they speculate RIM could be growing the QNX team as it prepares to take on the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and others in the tablet market.

No one in the office of the councillor for the area, Marianne Wilkinson, was available to discuss the status of RIM’s 2009 development application, which is still listed as “on hold” on the city’s website.

The Innovation Drive site was originally developed by Canderel before being sold to Cisco. It currently has two Cisco buildings, as well as the current RIM building at 4000 Innovation Dr.

No construction permits have been awarded by the city for projects on Innovation Drive in recent months, municipal records show.

In addition to its space on Innovation Drive and on Farrar Road, RIM occupies about 40,000 square feet at 450 March Rd. and between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet at 3026 Solandt Rd.

amanfromnowhere
Dec 3, 2010, 3:06 PM
Application Reactivated:
http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7MUG5H

Dado
Dec 3, 2010, 4:06 PM
Another stumpy suburban office block set back well away from the street by parking.

With all the office vacancies in Kanata (apparently 20%), one would have thought they could find space without building something themselves.

sgera
Apr 22, 2011, 1:33 AM
crane is now up and construction underway on March Road across from the Alcatel-Lucent buildings, adjacent to the Cisco office buildings.

reidjr
Apr 22, 2011, 11:27 AM
Another stumpy suburban office block set back well away from the street by parking.

With all the office vacancies in Kanata (apparently 20%), one would have thought they could find space without building something themselves.

Some times its better to build your own as you can build it to fit your needs.

c_speed3108
Apr 22, 2011, 5:28 PM
Another stumpy suburban office block set back well away from the street by parking.

With all the office vacancies in Kanata (apparently 20%), one would have thought they could find space without building something themselves.

I recall reading that given that the old Nortel complex on Carling is going to house DND and that DND will probably want the Nortel remnants to move out, the office space vacancy rate in the west end is effectively net negative now.

Consequently, it is either someone builds or someone moves to other areas of the city.

Pigeon hole theory at work :-)

Ottawan
Apr 22, 2011, 5:52 PM
I recall reading that given that the old Nortel complex on Carling is going to house DND and that DND will probably want the Nortel remnants to move out, the office space vacancy rate in the west end is effectively net negative now.

Consequently, it is either someone builds or someone moves to other areas of the city.

Pigeon hole theory at work :-)

The OBJ has been reporting on this situation for a while. According to their latest, it seems that these tenants are getting kicked out of the Carling Campus, and are inclined to stay in Kanata, but that nevertheless this is not actually making all that big a dent into the vacancy rate. See for example this article about the Ericsson-bought chunk of Nortel:

http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-residential/2011-04-04/article-2398057/Ericsson-to-stay-in-Kanata/1

DubberDom
Apr 24, 2011, 12:50 AM
I'm willing to bet that some of them may opt to skip town instead of moving, they have what they want (the Nortel patents/business units), and it would be cheaper to simply offer up relocation incentives rather than fit up a new office building. The labs in some of these areas are very $$$

rocketphish
Apr 26, 2011, 11:32 PM
RIM signs were being installed on Dell’s vacant former call centre at 1001 Farrar Rd. last week, confirming the rumours reported in OBJ.

http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-residential/2010-05-18/article-1118943/RIM-filling-former-Dell-call-centre,-sources-say/1

sgera
Apr 27, 2011, 1:44 AM
As someone who still works at the old Nortel campus (for one of the four acquirers of Nortel)...i can tell you that all four occupants (Ericsson, Ciena, Avaya, Genband) are all searching for real estate in kanata ...and it is likely (especially in Ericsson and Ciena's case) that they will need to build new buildings to accomodate their large employee base and lab space under one roof (as the OBJ has been reporting all along). In total, I would approximate that the four companies would need to find ~1M sq. feet including labs. Rumour is that Ciena may build near the Scotiabank Place??

All of these companies have different exit dates from the Nortel campus based on their respective leases....Some parts of the campus are already being painted suggesting DND may start moving into some of the campus' labs in the next year or so...who knows? The place fits 12,000 employees so it would likely take 5 years to occupy much like the former JDS campus - apparently that campus is only now finally being occupied to it's capacity by the RCMP (so many years later). I would imagine DND may need a couple of years to retrofit the AAA office space to it's standands + install what ever security they need around the campus...they are rumours for example that DND would need to replace all the glass windows with special ones to prevent wireless communications leakages and withstand attacks.