WSIB Head Office Moving to London

[GreatTallNorth2]

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

[jammer139]

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.

[jammer139]

LFP article on the news conference today.


https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...0-jobs-with-it


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/londo...ario-1.6431103

[GreatTallNorth2]

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.

[Innsertnamehere]

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.

[inimrepus]

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.

[Innsertnamehere]

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.

[jammer139]

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.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by jammer139

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)

[jammer139]

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.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by jammer139

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.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by jammer139

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.

[ssiguy]

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.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

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.

So Bell is actually fully moving out of the Bell building. They occupy 2 floors currently.

Also my company had a floor and a half there before the pandemic and we've reduced to just 1 now.

I'd expect the office space needs to be roughly one third to half of what they have now at the very most. So space for 1-1.5k office workers. Bell building could possibly house them as there's at least 3 full acre-sized floors available, plus partial floors or even a 4th full floor (I've only been there a couple times in the past 2+ years just to grab stuff from my desk and whatnot so not fully knowledgeable).

So yes they could possibly find an existing office building to locate to. If they can't all fit in Bell, maybe Farhi will throw in Market Tower or another one his of vacant properties - or they will build something new who knows.

[inimrepus]

Originally Posted by haljackey

I'd expect the office space needs to be roughly one third to half of what they have now at the very most. So space for 1-1.5k office workers. Bell building could possibly house them as there's at least 3 full acre-sized floors available, plus partial floors or even a 4th full floor (I've only been there a couple times in the past 2+ years just to grab stuff from my desk and whatnot so not fully knowledgeable).

According to the listing for 100 Dundas St. they have 39,9042 sq/ft available. That is significantly less than what they would need.

[jammer139]

More details in Thursday's budget apparently.


https://globalnews.ca/news/8787559/w...ve-london-ont/

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by inimrepus

According to the listing for 100 Dundas St. they have 39,9042 sq/ft available. That is significantly less than what they would need.

That website seems very out of date. There are at minimum 3.5 floors available in the Bell Building once Bell Canada leaves. There are 8 office floors so that's nearly 50% vacancy. I'm not sure about some of the others downsizing their floor space either- so it could be above 50% lease-able soon.

Originally Posted by johnnyhamont

If I'm London City council, I'm coming at the Province far more concerned that they build new housing to accommodate 3,000 employees than that they build new office space for them. London house prices have already doubled in two years without WSIB's presence. Laurier University arrived in Brantford with much fanfare for bringing new jobs and students to the city, but when they neglected to build any housing at all, they caused big problems and have been openly criticized for their negative impact on the community by exacerbating affordability issues.

The Province is pitching this plan as a way to save $30M/yr on 200 Front St, but they better be prepared to invest far more up-front in the cost of a new office building plus a few downtown condos in London if they want to actually sell themselves as a beneficial addition to the community.

Staff was told they can continue to live where they are and WFH. They'd only need to come to London for big meetings or whatever... maybe the government will make them take the underused GO train. Some may want to relocate here but I can't see more than 1K coming.

[johnnyhamont]

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.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by johnnyhamont

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.

[ericmacm]

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.