Trouble in downtown offices - long term or short term ?
Will Halifax be similar to Toronto and what is the impact on pension plans who have significant investments in office towers ?
" On an afternoon last month in Toronto’s financial district, one of the subterranean food courts was packed.
It was one of those days when the country’s financial capital resembled prepandemic office life. There were lineups for fast-food chains such as Jimmy the Greek that snaked through the rows of tables. Groups of office workers moved through the halls. Trendy restaurants were full.
That was a Thursday, just after noon. It’s a different story on Mondays and Fridays, when hardly anyone is in the office and retailers are mostly empty. After three years of working from home, a new pattern has taken hold: three days in the office, Tuesday to Thursday.
“No one is here on Monday and Friday,” said Sheila Popo, owner of accessory store Necessities, one of the tens of thousands of retailers in Toronto’s downtown hub.
Ms. Popo said her clients come to the office one to two days a week and tell her they “have no plans to go back” to five days a week.
She laid off her full-time employees in mid-March of 2020 and has never rehired them because her sales are 50-per-cent below prepandemic levels. She cut back how long her store is open by three hours a day."
" Foot traffic in downtown Toronto is about 40 per cent of prepandemic levels, according to the most recent reading from Avison Young’s vitality index, which measures cellphone pings throughout the downtown core. "
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