Winnipeg | True North Square | U/C

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

I don't know, I'm pretty much positive the statistics showed Winnipeg as one of the lowest class A office vacancies in the country. Someone must have those statistics.

4.4% for Q4 2015

http://www.cushmanwakefieldwinnipeg.ca/w...-2015-Office-Market-Beat-v4-EG-Edits.pdf

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

4.4% for Q4 2015

http://www.cushmanwakefieldwinnipeg.ca/w...-2015-Office-Market-Beat-v4-EG-Edits.pdf

Interesting how little Class A office space Winnipeg has. Under a quarter of our office space is Class A. Compare (using Cushman-Wakefield reports, presumably using similar methodology) with other mid-sized cities: Edmonton (about 60% Class A), Kitchener-Waterloo (about 45%), and Halifax-Dartmouth (about 40%).

[esquire]

^ It says we have 9 Class A buildings downtown. I wonder which those are?

-Richardson
-360 Main
-201 Portage
-MTS
-Manitoba Hydro
-400 St. Mary
-One Canada Centre
-Royal Bank Tower
-200 Graham

That's my best guess. Even among those 9, 4 are smaller buildings of under 20 storeys.... that's not really a lot of space. Just the one new TNS tower will be a substantial increase of floorspace to the Class A category.

[bomberjet]

What makes a building class A space? 330 St. Mary for example. What's different than say 201 Portage. No grand lobby? Size, as was mentioned? What services are available?

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

When TDS relocates, they'll leave 4-5 empty floors at 201 Portage IIRC. Aren't there other vacancies in all the P&M towers?

I haven't been there in a while but 201 Portage already had vacant floors. I suspect there are issues in the other corners too. Worse, once the BCE purchase of MTS completes they will start shrinking their workforce dumping more space on the market on the southeast corner of P&M.

Originally Posted by biguc

Also, it's called competition, and we widely consider it a good thing in a market. Our downtown office market is no exception.

If boarded up vacant buildings rotting away on Portage Ave like the one MB Start is now in was like for 20+ years is a good thing your vision of what is good for downtown is a little different than mine. Sure some property owners might upgrade their buildings or lower their rent but the end of the day there will be space that cannot be rented for any cost no matter how nice the space is. The former Canada Post tower is turning into one of those examples already...

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

What makes a building class A space? 330 St. Mary for example. What's different than say 201 Portage. No grand lobby? Size, as was mentioned? What services are available?

BOMA is glad you asked:

http://www.boma.org/research/pages/building-class-definitions.aspx

Class A
Most prestigious buildings competing for premier office users with rents above average for the area. Buildings have high quality standard finishes, state of the art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence.

Class B
Buildings competing for a wide range of users with rents in the average range for the area. Building finishes are fair to good for the area. Building finishes are fair to good for the area and systems are adequate, but the building does not compete with Class A at the same price.

Class C
Buildings competing for tenants requiring functional space at rents below the average for the area.

So from a Winnipeg perspective, we might have something like this:

Class A



Class B



Class C

[bomberjet]

Thanks Esquire. So it could be open a bit to interpretation I guess. A building bordering on Class B could tout they are Class A.

[Urban recluse]

Originally Posted by CoryB

I haven't been there in a while but 201 Portage already had vacant floors. I suspect there are issues in the other corners too. Worse, once the BCE purchase of MTS completes they will start shrinking their workforce dumping more space on the market on the southeast corner of P&M.



If boarded up vacant buildings rotting away on Portage Ave like the one MB Start is now in was like for 20+ years is a good thing your vision of what is good for downtown is a little different than mine. Sure some property owners might upgrade their buildings or lower their rent but the end of the day there will be space that cannot be rented for any cost no matter how nice the space is. The former Canada Post tower is turning into one of those examples already...

All comes down to demand. Location is key, but if a tenant cannot occupy desired space, they of course will choose another location. I am not sure the Avenue Building is a good example, as it is an old building, and of course the cost to redevelop it was higher than a newer office building.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Thanks Esquire. So it could be open a bit to interpretation I guess. A building bordering on Class B could tout they are Class A.

Yeah, it is kind of arbitrary and the standards vary by market. I'm not sure if 400 St. Mary is still counted as Class A but it was at one time, although in a market like Toronto or Calgary I'm sure it would have been Class B from the day it was built.

[1ajs]

Cranes going up along the church wall atm

[jmt18325]

Is the Bell deal really going to shrink the work force? They've touted having 6000 people here. How many are there now?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

Is the Bell deal really going to shrink the work force? They've touted having 6000 people here. How many are there now?

When a takeover of a local company is accompanied by a promise of no job losses, I'd assume that means the executives and C-suite jobs disappear and get replaced with techs and call centre people and others who don't need top-shelf office space.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by esquire

When a takeover of a local company is accompanied by a promise of no job losses, I'd assume that means the executives and C-suite jobs disappear and get replaced with techs and call centre people and others who don't need top-shelf office space.

That could be, although I'm sure they'll need people to run their prairie division.

[bomberjet]

On the tower crane. Don't they usually assemble the cab, boom, etc on the ground and attache it to the crane base with maybe one section of tower. Then start raising the crane by inserting sections?

They have the tower built 6 or 7 stories in the air and will now have to lift the cab boom etc way up there.

[optimusREIM]

wonder if they plan on putting the second crane up right away.

[cllew]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

On the tower crane. Don't they usually assemble the cab, boom, etc on the ground and attache it to the crane base with maybe one section of tower. Then start raising the crane by inserting sections?

They have the tower built 6 or 7 stories in the air and will now have to lift the cab boom etc way up there.

That sounds right, by doing it higher all the other work can continue on the site. It's not really that much harder for the Iron Workers to assemble it in the air.

If its starting out at the 6 /7 story level I'll be able to wave at the operator from our City Place office when I go back to work Monday morning.

[bomberjet]

They have the cab on the crane now.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Urban recluse

I am not sure the Avenue Building is a good example, as it is an old building, and of course the cost to redevelop it was higher than a newer office building.

But might the upcoming building shuffle say see the almost 50 year old 155/175/185 Carlton complex suddenly struggle to find tenants? It isn't a Class A building and those tenants will have the potential to upgrade to the newer 90s era 201 Portage at a nice discount compared to current rates. Or what about the even older Electric Railway Chambers in the shadow of 201 Portage Ave? Sure the shinny new towers are going to be nice but they are not creating new demand and it is going to cause issues for downtown as a whole going forward.

Originally Posted by esquire

When a takeover of a local company is accompanied by a promise of no job losses, I'd assume that means the executives and C-suite jobs disappear and get replaced with techs and call centre people and others who don't need top-shelf office space.

First the promise is essentially no job losses "immediately on takeover" in a couple of years all the sudden the back office type positions like finance, IT, etc can easily disappear as they "right size" the new combined organization. We could even lose out some of the tech side if they move some of the more fixed location jobs like tv operations and customer network operations out. They might offset that by bring in some of the customer service call centre jobs to try and keep their headcount that same but call centres use less space per employee than other positions, especially if they do shift work where multiple employees share a desk as they work different hours.

[Cyro]

Need a traffic cop on site with all the activity going on.

Originally Posted by Cyro

Crane assembly #1 of 2..

[bomberjet]

Different angle showing the crane top from lunch time.