Winnipeg | True North Square | U/C - Page 92

1ajs · #**1821** Posted **Jul 17, 2016, 8:00 PM**

both cranes are up

esquire · #**1822** Posted **Jul 17, 2016, 8:33 PM**

^ Now that's a construction site!

Urban recluse · #**1823** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 12:47 AM**

Yes, LOL. Looks great.

crocket · #**1824** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 1:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by esquire

Yeah, this won't be felt by 360 Main or 201 Portage. It'll be felt by the more marginal buildings like the Rice Financial Centre, Kensington Building, IBM Building, etc, which will have a hard time filling vacancies.

More attractive and modern office space can also attract companies that are in the suburbs now but could benefit from being more central. That'll have to be the biggest market for some of the new office towers.

bomberjet · #**1825** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 2:08 PM**

I wonder how much long we'll see the red and white crawler cranes on site? The tower cranes can reach almost the entire site now. Except for maybe the NW corner area. Maybe they'll keep one on site.

CoryB · #**1826** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 3:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tacheguy

Perfect. Some of them will likely be repurposed into living spaces. With all the vacancies in downtown Calgary now the older buildings are starting to be looked at that way. The market will clear eventually..

I think it is much more likely the class C vacancies will simply get boarded up and sit vacant and rotting like the Avenue building did for around 20 years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by crocket

More attractive and modern office space can also attract companies that are in the suburbs now but could benefit from being more central. That'll have to be the biggest market for some of the new office towers.

First, TNS is very much targeting companies that are at Portage and Main currently, not those in the suburbs. Even if the offices from the suburbs looked at relocating the cost of parking and the perceived safety issues will keep them out of downtown. That is why the financial services company moved from downtown to Polo Park.

esquire · #**1827** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 3:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoryB

First, TNS is very much targeting companies that are at Portage and Main currently, not those in the suburbs. Even if the offices from the suburbs looked at relocating the cost of parking and the perceived safety issues will keep them out of downtown. That is why the financial services company moved from downtown to Polo Park.

Some businesses have moved downtown in recent years... MNP and Stantec are two of the bigger ones I can think of, in addition to crowns like Hydro which moved a decade ago and MLLC which may or may not still move.

But are there really all that many large offices in the suburbs which could easily move downtown? I'm not sure that there are... the office parks here are filled with mostly small offices. You don't see the big US-style suburban office parks with entire towers occupied by one or two companies. Many of the ones that are in the suburbs are attached to plants and are never going to move, like E.H. Price or Motorcoach type operations.

Urban recluse · #**1828** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 3:41 PM**

We need to see small companies expand.

robertocarlos · #**1829** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:04 PM**

Medical offices should abandon downtown for the PP area.

esquire · #**1830** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Medical offices should abandon downtown for the PP area.

Why?

robertocarlos · #**1831** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by esquire

Why?

Nicer offices and better parking. Then you can shop afterwards. Taking the bus to PP is easy too as it is a major destination.

A place I visited left the Medical Arts building for the PP area. Much better and I live on Hargrave.

esquire · #**1832** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Nicer offices and better parking. Then you can shop afterwards. Taking the bus to PP is easy too as it is a major destination.

A place I visited left the Medical Arts building for the PP area. Much better and I live on Hargrave.

Judging by how many doctors are downtown relative to Polo Park it's clearly a more convenient location for most... and office décor has nothing to do with what part of town it's in.

robertocarlos · #**1833** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by esquire

Judging by how many doctors are downtown relative to Polo Park it's clearly a more convenient location for most... and office décor has nothing to do with what part of town it's in.

Well if downtown is better than leaving those old offices for TNS will be a good option.

bomberjet · #**1834** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by esquire

Some businesses have moved downtown in recent years... MNP and Stantec are two of the bigger ones I can think of, in addition to crowns like Hydro which moved a decade ago and MLLC which may or may not still move.

But are there really all that many large offices in the suburbs which could easily move downtown? I'm not sure that there are... the office parks here are filled with mostly small offices. You don't see the big US-style suburban office parks with entire towers occupied by one or two companies. Many of the ones that are in the suburbs are attached to plants and are never going to move, like E.H. Price or Motorcoach type operations.

Define smaller. There aren't many Hydro sized companies around, no doubt.

There are numerous companies of 100-200 people out in the office parks around town. I'm speaking mostly from an engineering company perspective. There's got to be a good number of other industries that are similar. This would be about the same size as Stantec. That would fill a couple/few floors depending on the building.

A lot of them are loathe to move, as senior staff are close to home and like driving their cars. I was quite surprised when Stantec moved downtown. Do they get priority parking in the new parkade, if anyone knows?

On rates, I'm not up to speed on what the office parks charge per sq/ft. Must be cheaper than a class A downtown, for sure. But they're not bargains out in suburbia either.

rkspec · #**1835** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:47 PM**

looking good:

July 18

http://www.truenorthsquare.com/development/constructionupdate/

CoryB · #**1836** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 4:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertocarlos

Medical offices should abandon downtown for the PP area.

Maybe it is just me but when I was younger it seemed like every family doctor and even some of the bigger dental practices where downtown, especially in the Medical Arts building. I don't know exactly when the shift happened but it seems a lot of those same practices have shifted to strip malls closer to where their patients live. The specialists also seem to have moved out of Medical Arts and moved into Winnipeg and Manitoba Clinics. Some even see patients directly out of hospital based clinics now. It doesn't just seem to be the PP area that medical offices are moving to.

Kronos · #**1837** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 9:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoryB

Maybe it is just me but when I was younger it seemed like every family doctor and even some of the bigger dental practices where downtown, especially in the Medical Arts building. I don't know exactly when the shift happened but it seems a lot of those same practices have shifted to strip malls closer to where their patients live. The specialists also seem to have moved out of Medical Arts and moved into Winnipeg and Manitoba Clinics. Some even see patients directly out of hospital based clinics now. It doesn't just seem to be the PP area that medical offices are moving to.

Many physicians left the major downtown clinics (medical arts and manitoba/Winnipeg clinics) given that they offered old run down medical offices,
cramped examining rooms, slow transition to electronic medical records ( EMR), and were notorious for still charging very high overhead percentages as physicians joining the clinic would work as associates, not partners. Additionally patients would complain about paying for parking particularly if physicians were running behind. Moving to a suburban based location typically allowed a small group of physicians to control their own clinic in terms of staffing, hours, design and allow them to incorporate EMR and other technologies; in essence this also gave advantage to better controlling overhead costs. Suburban leasing rates have been typically cheaper than downtown rates on average, and therefore have allowed new clinics to spend more money on leasehold improvements and staffing, with the available surface parking reducing hassle from patients if physicians running late.
It will be interesting to see if the changes at the Manitoba Clinic and the new office builds downtown have any influence on the above.....

esquire · #**1838** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 9:28 PM**

^ Sounds to me like the Medical Arts Building ownership (which as I recall was publicly listed for many years on the former Winnipeg Stock Exchange) just failed to keep up with the times and maintain their asset. Judging by how terribly their parking facilities are still operated to this day, it's fair to say it's not exactly a customer-focused organization.

For what it's worth most of my trips to the doctor these days involve the Manitoba Clinic which is at least as much of a pain in the rear as MAB, if not more. Doubly so with the parking going on. I'd be thrilled if I could find docs for me and my kids in the Medical Arts Building... it would far more convenient for me.

I wonder if any thought was ever given to just renovating the Medical Arts Building and filling it with doctors' offices again?

Kronos · #**1839** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 9:49 PM**

^the trend for a lot of physicians is to move away from working in the massive clinic setting to a much smaller clinic in terms of number of physicians (4-6 being a common size) and square footage. I would imagine it would be hard for the Medical Arts to attract a lot of new physicians given this trend

CoryB · #**1840** Posted **Jul 18, 2016, 9:57 PM**

^^ The challenge becomes one of ownership and control over decision making as well as cost to operate. Basically for Medical Arts or similar to be viable for medical offices you need to be similar in cost to the cheapest suburban strip mall.