Performance Court (150 Elgin) | 90.5m | 21 fl | Completed

[Temperance]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I can't believe how many people misuse the word "ironic".

It's ironic, isn't it?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Temperance

It's ironic, isn't it?

Yes, I believe the word "ironic" can be used to describe this situation.

[J.OT13]

West Side Action piece on 150 and 90 Elgin.

http://www.westsideaction.com/elgin-...m-improvement/

[rocketphish]

Around Town: A toast to the new Beckta

Caroline Phillips, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 16, 2014, Last Updated: November 16, 2014 8:43 AM EST

The highly-anticipated relocation of Beckta restaurant to its elegant new spot on Elgin Street gave rise to a big celebration Friday, even if owner Stephen Beckta was on the brink of exhaustion from all his hard work getting the place retrofitted and in ready-set-serve shape.

“The adrenalin is getting me through,” said Beckta while speaking (albeit with a hoarse voice) with Around Town inside Beckta Dining and Wine Bar, a fine dining restaurant and casual wine bar at 150 Elgin St.

His fatigue is understandable; he hasn’t had a day off in 60 days.

Reaction to the new space has been “pretty amazing,” said the well-known and well-respected restaurateur.

It took “a real community effort,” Beckta added, to retain the heritage charm of the historic Grant House building, previously home for many years to Friday’s Roast Beef House.

Among the folks spotted at the sneak-peak party were Yasir Naqvi, Liberal cabinet minister and MPP for Ottawa Centre, energetic entrepreneur Harley Finkelstein from Shopify, lawyer-about-town Randy Marusyk and executive director Colleen Mooney and board chair Graham Macmillan from the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, a non-profit organization that helps children and youth. Beckta is an alumnus and sits on its board.

Former NHLer Jim Kyte, dean of the School of Hospitality at Algonquin College, was sighted. So was Michael Moffatt, executive chef of Beckta and its sister restaurants, Play Food and Wine in the ByWard Market and Gezellig in Westboro. Moffatt and the director of operations, Clay Cardillo, are also partners in the biz, which follows a community-ownership model with small investors.

Other guests included photographic artist Jordan Craig and painter Andrew King. Their works hang prominently in the new joint. Worth mentioning is the vintage-styled painting of the old Elgin Theatre that King created specifically for the new Beckta restaurant. Beckta used to watch old movies at the now-closed cinema as a kid, to escape the heartache of his parents’ split. Beckta went every Sunday, for something like 12 weeks, to see the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun. The painting depicts a shadowed lone boy staring up at the bright lights of the movie marquee. King even did research for the accuracy of his painting to find out what other movie (Aliens) had been playing and what the films’ show times were.

The new Beckta officially opens — to a full house — on Wednesday.

carolyn001@sympatico.ca

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...the-new-beckta

[rocketphish]

Shopify opens new floors at Performance Court, more expansion in new year

David Sali
Published on August 10, 2015



Shopify’s new head office is both mere blocks and a world away from the e-commerce powerhouse’s beginnings as an online snowboard store in 2004.

Ottawa’s newest public company officially moved into its posh new digs in Performance Court at 150 Elgin St. last October– 10 years after founder Tobias Lütke created his first online sales platform at a coffee shop just down the road.

Earlier this month, the firm opened the 10th and 11th floors. The defining element on floor 11 – its theme is “Back Alley” – is one of the office’s most popular features so far: a circular rubber “trike track” for skateboarders, complete with an electronic clock for staging impromptu time trials. The track is even insulated to muffle noise so employees working on the floor below won’t be disturbed.

Just down the hall, an entertainment room offers an array of the latest video games and that timeless classic, foosball, among other attractions. If all that activity leaves workers a little fatigued, they needn’t worry – a pair of hammocks are conveniently stationed a few steps away, with a spectacular view of the nearby canal, courthouse and city hall.

How would Greg Scorsone, the firm’s director of internal operations, describe the overall vibe?

“Comfortable,” he immediately answers. “That’s sort of the one word that sums it up. We wanted it to be like your home, like you want to come here every day. It’s an office tailored for every kind of worker.”

Designed by local architect Andrew Reeves of LineBox Studio and built by Ottawa contractor The Lake Partnership, the project went smoothly and was more budget-friendly than many similar undertakings in which he’s been involved, Mr. Scorsone says.

Still, it had its moments.

“A lot of it was just getting the design in the accelerated timeline and getting it all done,” he says. “Everybody wanted to be in here so quickly that we just had to work faster to get it done.”

His favourite spot is a seventh-floor boardroom popularly referred to as White Russian. Fittingly, all the furniture is white, and the room looks out onto a terrace.

“In the wintertime with the snow blowing, it’s just awesome,” he says.

The company has also leased floors 12 and 13. It just began designing those last month and plans to start construction before the end of the year, with a target opening of mid-2016.

“I think everybody has their own preferences,” Mr. Scorsone says of employees’ reactions so far. “The good news is that somebody likes every different part of it.”

http://www.obj.ca/Local/2015-08-10/a...-in-new-year/1

[Harley613]

OOF that's a big hit to the Ottawa commercial market.

https://obj.ca/article/real-estate/n...-street-hq-bid


Three months after declaring it was going “digital by default” in the wake of COVID-19, Shopify is preparing to vacate its Elgin Street headquarters as part of a plan to consolidate its Ottawa operations at an office tower on nearby Laurier Avenue, OBJ has confirmed.

The e-commerce giant currently occupies about 170,000 square feet of space on several floors in Performance Court at 150 Elgin St., where it has been based since October 2014. More than 850 people occupied the space before Shopify’s employees began working from home in March as the coronavirus began spreading across the country.

Shopify’s lease at Performance Court does not expire until the end of 2026, but the company is actively trying to sublease the space in an effort to reduce its real estate footprint as many of its employees are expected to keep working from home permanently, sources said Monday.

CBRE Ottawa managing director Shawn Hamilton, who confirmed the news Monday morning, said the market response to Shopify’s decision will be a good litmus test of the office sector’s resilience.

“I’m interested to see what kind of uptick this causes in leasing activity in the market,” he said. “I don't think this is the death knell of the office leasing market for Ottawa. I do think it’ll present an opportunity that will give us a sense of how vibrant our leasing market is – or isn’t.”

Royal LePage, which represents Shopify in local real estate negotiations, is expected to start actively marketing the space to prospective tenants this week, another veteran broker told OBJ.

“I guess they’re going to have more people working at home or perhaps people working differently,” the broker, who asked not to be named, said.

234 Laurier space to be ‘reimagined’
Morguard, which co-owns and manages Performance Court, and Eric Van Hofwegen, Shopify’s broker at Royal LePage Performance Realty, referred all requests for comment to Shopify.

Shopify officials would not directly answer a question about whether the firm was subleasing its space at 150 Elgin St. However, in a statement emailed to OBJ last Friday afternoon regarding its future real estate plans in the capital, the company made no mention of Performance Court and instead focused on Shopify’s space in the former Export Development Canada tower at 234 Laurier Ave. W., which it leased in 2017.

“Ottawa remains an important talent market for us ​– it’s where Shopify was founded and our 234 Laurier office will be reimagined for our digital by default mindset,” the statement said.

Shopify’s exit from Performance Court – a distinctive 21-storey highrise with a construction price tag of more than $160 million – is poised to leave a major void in one of the central business district’s signature office buildings.

Already a rising star in the world of e-commerce, Shopify gave the gleaming new 360,000-square-foot office tower instant cachet when it became Morguard’s marquee tenant nearly six years ago.

With headline-grabbing features such as a go-kart track and massive state-of-the-art games room, Shopify’s HQ became a symbol of a hip new generation of Ottawa tech firms that were setting up shop in the city’s core rather than the suburbs of Kanata. Other firms subsequently opened their own shiny new downtown digs, including fellow software enterprises Klipfolio and Fullscript.

Now, the capital’s tech darling is set to abandon its fancy headquarters in favour of newly renovated offices just a few blocks away on Laurier Avenue. Shopify signed a long-term lease for 18 floors covering 325,000 square feet of space in the building more than three years ago, saying the additional real estate could provide space for another 2,500 employees.

“We hire people so quickly that filling up has not ever been a problem,” Greg Scorsone, Shopify’s director of internal operations, told OBJ in March 2017.

But the commercial real estate outlook has changed dramatically since COVID-19 hit as many companies began rethinking their need for large swaths of traditional office space.

While Shopify has continued to grow at a breakneck pace – even supplanting RBC as Canada’s most valuable publicly traded company earlier this year – most of those new hires are now working from home due to the pandemic, and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

In May, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lütke said the company’s offices will remain closed until 2021, adding most employees would probably work remotely on a permanent basis. Lütke tweeted that Shopify is a "digital company" by default, adding "office centricity is over."

Vacancy rates still far from historic highs
Still, many longtime commercial real estate executives say it’s too early to predict the long-term impact of the pandemic on the Ottawa market.

According to CBRE’s second-quarter office market report, the amount of sublease space available in Ottawa jumped 11 per cent between the beginning of April ​– roughly the same time the effects of the coronavirus pandemic really began to be felt in the capital ​– and the end of June.

But the 283,000 square feet of space available for sublease at that point was still a far cry from the nearly 2.2 million square feet of space that was up for grabs back in 2003, after the tech bubble of the late 1990s had burst.

“Certainly, (Shopify) putting 170,000 square feet on the market will drive vacancy up, but I still think we’re a long way from what historic highs have been,” Hamilton said on Monday. “I don’t think that this will create a tidal wave of people vacating their space.

“We have a long way to go to get to problem territory. I think we would need another two or three Shopifys to come on the market for things to be a problem.”

The veteran broker said that while the most obvious candidate, the federal government, might not be a good fit for the newly vacant Performance Court space, it could be an enticing commodity for a growing software enterprise that’s seeking to make a splash.

“It may be a little too esoteric for federal government-type use,” Hamilton said, noting a couple of federal Crown corporations are currently in the market for space. “I do think this will open up opportunities for tech (firms) who are looking for creative space.”

[caboose]

Originally Posted by Harley613

OOF that's a big hit to the Ottawa commercial market.

https://obj.ca/article/real-estate/n...-street-hq-bid


Three months after declaring it was going “digital by default” in the wake of COVID-19, Shopify is preparing to vacate its Elgin Street headquarters as part of a plan to consolidate its Ottawa operations at an office tower on nearby Laurier Avenue, OBJ has confirmed.

The e-commerce giant currently occupies about 170,000 square feet of space on several floors in Performance Court at 150 Elgin St., where it has been based since October 2014. More than 850 people occupied the space before Shopify’s employees began working from home in March as the coronavirus began spreading across the country.

Shopify’s lease at Performance Court does not expire until the end of 2026, but the company is actively trying to sublease the space in an effort to reduce its real estate footprint as many of its employees are expected to keep working from home permanently, sources said Monday.

CBRE Ottawa managing director Shawn Hamilton, who confirmed the news Monday morning, said the market response to Shopify’s decision will be a good litmus test of the office sector’s resilience.

“I’m interested to see what kind of uptick this causes in leasing activity in the market,” he said. “I don't think this is the death knell of the office leasing market for Ottawa. I do think it’ll present an opportunity that will give us a sense of how vibrant our leasing market is – or isn’t.”

Royal LePage, which represents Shopify in local real estate negotiations, is expected to start actively marketing the space to prospective tenants this week, another veteran broker told OBJ.

“I guess they’re going to have more people working at home or perhaps people working differently,” the broker, who asked not to be named, said.

234 Laurier space to be ‘reimagined’
Morguard, which co-owns and manages Performance Court, and Eric Van Hofwegen, Shopify’s broker at Royal LePage Performance Realty, referred all requests for comment to Shopify.

Shopify officials would not directly answer a question about whether the firm was subleasing its space at 150 Elgin St. However, in a statement emailed to OBJ last Friday afternoon regarding its future real estate plans in the capital, the company made no mention of Performance Court and instead focused on Shopify’s space in the former Export Development Canada tower at 234 Laurier Ave. W., which it leased in 2017.

“Ottawa remains an important talent market for us ​– it’s where Shopify was founded and our 234 Laurier office will be reimagined for our digital by default mindset,” the statement said.

Shopify’s exit from Performance Court – a distinctive 21-storey highrise with a construction price tag of more than $160 million – is poised to leave a major void in one of the central business district’s signature office buildings.

Already a rising star in the world of e-commerce, Shopify gave the gleaming new 360,000-square-foot office tower instant cachet when it became Morguard’s marquee tenant nearly six years ago.

With headline-grabbing features such as a go-kart track and massive state-of-the-art games room, Shopify’s HQ became a symbol of a hip new generation of Ottawa tech firms that were setting up shop in the city’s core rather than the suburbs of Kanata. Other firms subsequently opened their own shiny new downtown digs, including fellow software enterprises Klipfolio and Fullscript.

Now, the capital’s tech darling is set to abandon its fancy headquarters in favour of newly renovated offices just a few blocks away on Laurier Avenue. Shopify signed a long-term lease for 18 floors covering 325,000 square feet of space in the building more than three years ago, saying the additional real estate could provide space for another 2,500 employees.

“We hire people so quickly that filling up has not ever been a problem,” Greg Scorsone, Shopify’s director of internal operations, told OBJ in March 2017.

But the commercial real estate outlook has changed dramatically since COVID-19 hit as many companies began rethinking their need for large swaths of traditional office space.

While Shopify has continued to grow at a breakneck pace – even supplanting RBC as Canada’s most valuable publicly traded company earlier this year – most of those new hires are now working from home due to the pandemic, and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

In May, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lütke said the company’s offices will remain closed until 2021, adding most employees would probably work remotely on a permanent basis. Lütke tweeted that Shopify is a "digital company" by default, adding "office centricity is over."

Vacancy rates still far from historic highs
Still, many longtime commercial real estate executives say it’s too early to predict the long-term impact of the pandemic on the Ottawa market.

According to CBRE’s second-quarter office market report, the amount of sublease space available in Ottawa jumped 11 per cent between the beginning of April ​– roughly the same time the effects of the coronavirus pandemic really began to be felt in the capital ​– and the end of June.

But the 283,000 square feet of space available for sublease at that point was still a far cry from the nearly 2.2 million square feet of space that was up for grabs back in 2003, after the tech bubble of the late 1990s had burst.

“Certainly, (Shopify) putting 170,000 square feet on the market will drive vacancy up, but I still think we’re a long way from what historic highs have been,” Hamilton said on Monday. “I don’t think that this will create a tidal wave of people vacating their space.

“We have a long way to go to get to problem territory. I think we would need another two or three Shopifys to come on the market for things to be a problem.”

The veteran broker said that while the most obvious candidate, the federal government, might not be a good fit for the newly vacant Performance Court space, it could be an enticing commodity for a growing software enterprise that’s seeking to make a splash.

“It may be a little too esoteric for federal government-type use,” Hamilton said, noting a couple of federal Crown corporations are currently in the market for space. “I do think this will open up opportunities for tech (firms) who are looking for creative space.”

It will be awhile but the federal government will face the same decisions. There will be a lot of empty offices everywhere.

[kwoldtimer]

“I’m interested to see what kind of uptick this causes in leasing activity in the market,” he said. “I don't think this is the death knell of the office leasing market for Ottawa. I do think it’ll present an opportunity ..."

You gotta love real estate agents!

[J.OT13]

Ottawa's office market has been extremely tight for years, discouraging some tech companies from establishing presence or expanding here, so this might be good in the medium term.

I'm not surprised to see Shopify shed a big piece of their office space after their announcement in May, but I am surprised that they chose to let go of 150 Elgin instead of 234 Laurier, unless they plan on taking up the entire 18 floors, even with the "digital by default" policy.

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Ottawa's office market has been extremely tight for years, discouraging some tech companies from establishing presence or expanding here, so this might be good in the medium term.

I'm not surprised to see Shopify shed a big piece of their office space after their announcement in May, but I am surprised that they chose to let go of 150 Elgin instead of 234 Laurier, unless they plan on taking up the entire 18 floors, even with the "digital by default" policy.

I'm surprised how much bigger the Laurier space is than the Elgin Space. 170,000 sq ft on Elgin compared to 350,000 on Laurier, that's a significant difference.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Catenary

I'm surprised how much bigger the Laurier space is than the Elgin Space. 170,000 sq ft on Elgin compared to 350,000 on Laurier, that's a significant difference.

When they leased the Elgin location in 2014, the company was growing fast, but not quite as fast as it has been since. The tower was also being snapped up quickly by other big companies like CIBC and KPMG so there was a limited amount of space Shopify could take.

234 Laurier had been completely vacated by (well EDC first) and then the Bank of Canada, so the entire tower was available. Shopify, it seems, jumped at the opportunity to take up the majority of the building for future expansion.

https://www.obj.ca/article/shopify-m...enue-expansion

[Kitchissippi]

I wonder if Shopify could eventually be wooed into taking the office building in Trinity Centre at Bayview. It’s right next to Hipsterburg, which has far a more interesting vernacular than Elgin Street. They’d be a great fit there, the apartments would be convenient for WFH

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I wonder if Shopify could eventually be wooed into taking the office building in Trinity Centre at Bayview. It’s right next to Hipsterburg, which has far a more interesting vernacular than Elgin Street. They’d be a great fit there, the apartments would be convenient for WFH

I wish. Breaking the lease agreement with 234 aside, it would probably be beneficial for them to have a new office tower built to their specifications from scratch instead of retrofiring an existing building with all the cool features they implemented at 150 Elgin (that is, if they still require 325,000 square feet).

[rocketphish]

Speculation builds over prospective tenants for Shopify’s Elgin Street space
Shopify is moving out of its flagship downtown office space at 150 Elgin St. File photo

By: David Sali
Published: Sep 2, 2020 5:26pm EDT

Shopify’s decision to give up its flagship office on Elgin Street could provide an opportunity for a new generation of emerging tech startups to spread their wings and mature into industry-leading companies in their own right, a prominent commercial real estate broker said Wednesday.

As OBJ reported Monday, the Ottawa-based global e-commerce powerhouse is set to move out of its headquarters in Performance Court at 150 Elgin St. and consolidate its downtown presence in space it leases at nearby 234 Laurier Ave. W. as it shifts to a digital-first work strategy.

The news immediately triggered a wave of speculation about who would fill 170,000 square feet of suddenly vacant space at the 21-storey office tower that opened to much fanfare six years ago. Shopify, which is expected to start actively trying to sublease the space this week, still has more than six years remaining on a lease that expires in 2026.

With the teleworking trend shifting into overdrive since the COVID-19 pandemic began, many real estate observers say Shopify is likely to be just one of many companies putting space on the sublet market in the months to come. Finding tenants to fill the void Shopify left at Performance Court could be a challenge in a commercial real estate market that’s likely to soften considerably, they add.

But Martin Aass, managing principal at real estate brokerage firm Cresa Ottawa, says Shopify’s ritzy digs ​– with such eye-popping features as a slide between floors and a go-kart track ​– could be the ideal fit for rising tech startups with an appetite for “funky, cool, appealing space” that are looking to make a name for themselves in the downtown scene.

“It’s spectacular,” he says, adding Shopify could end up “seeding a bunch of technology companies if those are the companies that end up occupying the space.”

Shopify poured a significant amount of money into making its 150 Elgin headquarters Ottawa’s most buzzworthy office, Aass notes. He expects the space will generate plenty of interest from young tech firms looking to benefit vicariously from its ready-made cachet.

“Even if you have to do a little work to sort of segregate off one floor from the other, the reality is you’ve got a hugely valuable fitup done by (Ottawa-based architecture firm) Linebox, one of the best designers in Canada, and it’s all going to be available.

“Spending $20,000 or $40,000 (in renovation costs) compared to saving $200 a square foot – which is millions of dollars – in fitup, it’s going to look really appealing to a lot of technology companies. It’s already built, so you don’t have to do a 10- or a 15-year deal to justify the expense of construction. That’s already been paid for.”

Still, Aass concedes even without those extra costs, rent at Shopify’s former HQ will likely be too steep for a lot of would-be tenants.

“Everything depends on price,” he says. “It’s expensive space.”

Darren Fleming, CEO of Ottawa-based brokerage Real Strategy Advisors, isn’t as convinced the space will be snapped up quickly, saying Shopify’s “creatively wacky” design concepts limit the potential pool of subletters.

“There’s some stuff in there that not a lot of tenants might readily be able to take advantage of,” adding that certain elements such as the slide and amphitheatre-like seating in some rooms might need to be modified to attract tenants.

“I think the fact that it’s going to need work is going to be one of the challenges.”

Aass and Fleming agree that the region’s largest renter of office space, the federal government, isn’t likely to throw its hat into the ring.

“It’s just not the sort of fitup that they would want,” Aass says, adding the feds also might not be willing to commit to adding any new real estate to their inventory while the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 persists.

Fleming adds that Shopify’s move could be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to downtown companies looking to sublet space and reduce their office footprints in the wake of the pandemic.

“The big wave that's coming has yet to hit,” he predicts.

https://www.obj.ca/article/real-esta...shopifys-elgin

[J.OT13]

Co-working firm TCC Canada takes over chunk of Shopify's former Elgin Street HQ

David Sali, OBJ
April 15, 2021


Ottawa-based co-working firm TCC is subleasing 100,000 square feet of space at Shopify's former head office on Elgin Street, the compay has confirmed to OBJ. File photo

After months of speculation about the future of a prime piece of downtown real estate, an Ottawa-based co-working company says it is taking over most of Shopify’s former headquarters at 150 Elgin St. in a bid to capitalize on rising demand for flexible workspace in the wake of the pandemic.

TCC Canada has confirmed it is subleasing 100,000 square feet of space previously occupied by the e-commerce software giant in Performance Court, one of the city’s marquee office towers.

The co-working firm was officially handed the keys to six interconnected floors in the building on Thursday morning. Six years remain on Shopify’s lease with Morguard, which co-owns and manages the 21-storey office tower.

“This is one of the best office spaces in our city,” TCC Canada vice-president of operations Sean Cochrane told OBJ. “Flexible space, that’s one thing, but this is iconic space. I just really want to create an environment for employers so that their staff want to be at work ​– not have to be.”

Shopify made headlines late last summer after announcing it was giving up its 170,000-square-foot head office on Elgin Street as part of a plan to consolidate its operations at nearby 234 Laurier Ave. W.

'Digital by default'

The e-commerce powerhouse had been a tenant at Performance Court since October 2014. Part office and part rec room, the space soon became an indelible part of the growing Shopify legend, with features that include a go-kart track, a slide between two levels and floors with themes such as “cottage retreat.”

But Shopify’s enthusiasm for the chic space appeared to wane after the emergence of COVID-19. Last May, CEO Tobi Lütke declared the company was going “digital by default,” adding most of its employees would permanently shift to remote work.

“Office centricity is over,” Lütke said in a much-quoted tweet.

However, Cochrane, whose firm now operates seven locations in Ottawa and Vancouver, believes there will continue to be healthy demand for physical office space in a post-COVID world.

He says he’s heard from a growing number of potential clients, particularly in the tech sector, that are looking to “right-size their operations” as they move to a hybrid work model where employees split their time between home and the office.

Cochrane says co-working companies stand to benefit as more tenants eschew long-term leases in favour of arrangements that allow them to rent desks for shorter periods while they gauge how their office needs play out.

“There’s so many organizations that don’t know what to do,” he said. “That’s why I love our model, because it’s flexible. Whatever you need, we can accommodate that and give you that flexibility.”

The company is convinced its new downtown digs will be a sought-after location.

“Literally each floor is a different ecosystem. People can pick and choose what their environment is,” Cochrane said, noting the space’s many lounges and themed rooms, most of which can be reconfigured to meet clients’ needs.

“(Tenants) are going to get access to all of this as if they were a Shopify employee, which is incredible.”

'A choice of experience'

Veteran Ottawa real estate executive Shawn Hamilton said the move “makes an awful lot of sense” for a company that’s looking to provide an eclectic array of options to clients.

“For a (long-term) office user, I think the Shopify space was difficult because it was so different from anything else that we have,” said Hamilton, the president of BOMA Ottawa and a vice-president at Canderel Group.

“But if you look at it for somebody who’s offering flexible experiences to (tenants), the fact that they have different floors with different themes almost plays to their advantage in that they have a choice of experience to offer people. It’s almost like you can have ‘choose your theme of the week’ at the Shopify space. I think it’s very exciting.”

Cochrane said TCC will be targeting “any small business that’s looking for top-tier space” in its marketing efforts.

Alas, fans of go-karting will have to look elsewhere, however.

The racetrack on the 11th floor “isn’t going to stay,” Cochrane said with a chuckle. “That’ll be one of the few things that we look to remove just because I don’t think that’s practical.”

https://obj.ca/index.php/article/rea...hopifys-former

[rocketphish]

Co-working operator claims Elgin Street space formerly home to Shopify HQ

Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Apr 15, 2021 • 13 minutes ago • 2 minute read



A new tenant has found a home at Shopify’s former headquarters at 150 Elgin St.

But, like the former occupant, they won’t be setting up a traditional office in the building.

TCC Canada, The Corporate Centre, operates flexible office and coworking spaces. It announced Thursday that it’s transforming the former Shopify HQ into “Ottawa’s largest and most masterfully designed co-working space,” positioning the project as a answer to pandemic woes facing businesses and their employees.

“The forced work from home experiment created by the pandemic has many employees suffering in silence from their homes without any alternative. And with all the uncertainty, many businesses are understandably hesitant to sign long term office leases in downtown Ottawa,” a TCC Canada press release states.

It also hailed its takeover as a boon for Elgin street businesses, who’ve suffered through years-long construction in addition to COVID-19 lockdowns and workplace closures.

The news broke last September that Shopify was giving up its 170,000 square feet of office space at Elgin Street’s Performance Court, and that a search was underway for one or more tenants to take over the remaining years on its lease, slated to expire in 2026.

The e-commerce giant had maintained its headquarters at 150 Elgin St. since October 2014. According to a company news release at the time, the custom-designed office could accommodate more than 1,000 employees, had a theme for every floor, and boasted a ball pit, massage room, yoga studio, and other trappings.

Two months into the pandemic, Shopify founder and chief executive Tobi Lütke announced the company was becoming “digital by default” and most of its 5,000 employees would permanently work remotely.

TCC Canada’s website says their new location at 150 Elgin St. is open for bookings. Covering more than 100,000 square feet, it’s equipped with board rooms, team rooms, and solo offices. They also promoted a cereal bar and kitchen, a “quiet room,” and shared outdoor terrace.

The company was founded in Ottawa, and hosts office space at five other locations in the city.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-to-shopify-hq

[ars]

As someone who's visited that office quite a bit over the past few years, gonna miss that place.

[DarkArconio]

All you'll need to do is lease a desk to see it again! With a professional kitchen in the office I imagine they may even consider setting up a cafe or restaurant.

[J.OT13]

Hoping Shopify takes back their Go-Kart track and moves into 234 Laurier.

[rocketphish]

Coworking space operator, TCC Canada breathes new life into Shopify’s Iconic Elgin Street HQ

By: OBJ360 Content Studio
Published: Apr 26, 2021 9:18am EDT

[This article is sponsored by TCC Canada]

One of Canada’s largest providers of coworking and flexible workspace has snapped up space at Shopify’s former Elgin Street headquarters, opening opportunities for businesses to set up shop in what is arguably the city’s most unique and high-profile office space.

TCC Canada’s move to reignite Shopify’s space at 150 Elgin St. comes as many employers are rethinking their office space requirements and how to provide a workplace that attracts talent, promotes collaboration between staff and presents a professional image to clients while still maintaining flexible remote-work options that became commonplace in 2020.

TCC Canada already operates a network of shared and virtual office spaces across Ottawa and is adding the iconic former Shopify HQ which has multiple interconnected floors of uniquely designed space – each of which is its own “ecosystem” of shared spaces and private offices – to its local portfolio.

As businesses look to bring teams back together, 150 Elgin St. offers a premium employee experience without a long-term lease commitment, says Sean Cochrane, president of TCC Canada.

“One of the biggest things employees are looking for is flexibility around where and how they work,” he says. “Whether that's in a single office, a team room or an entire floor, at 150 Elgin St. you can still enjoy that highly collaborative ecosystem and that flexibility without having to break the bank or commit to a 10 year lease.”

While the former Shopify office is known for its playful amenities such as a slide and colourful murals, its creative layout – with dedicated spaces for both quiet, individual work as well as collaboration – lends itself perfectly for coworking.

The location features open spaces, comfy seating areas, private suites and offices as well as theatre-style training and event spaces.

“The space speaks to so many different uses and so many different people,” Cochrane says. “Not everyone is looking for that cookie-cutter corporate image, and this space is far from it.”

Tenants also have access to a 10 gigabit dedicated fibre network which includes state of the art Cisco Security and can choose to include meeting or event space access in their agreement – saving them money in the long run by not paying the full overhead costs for amenities that go unused for significant periods of the day.

All of the spaces at TCC’s Collaboration Centre have independent air circulation and controls for each room and feature modern HVAC systems and controls, helping to alleviate health and safety concerns about working in an enclosed office.

With so many companies rethinking their traditional real estate footprint, Ransome Drcar – vice-president of real estate services firm JLL Ottawa – says coworking can be a great solution for companies looking for ways of bringing employees back together post pandemic.

Working from a serviced office offers business owners unparalleled flexibility to take additional space or downsize as needed.

“The worst thing a company can do right now is decide what their new footprint is going to look like five years from now,” says Drcar. “Coworking spaces can provide a very valuable service for companies looking to figure out what our new normal is going to look like.”

The former Shopify space also gives employers a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining employees who are increasingly looking to work in space that facilitates creativity and collaboration, he adds.

“The changing demographics are really going to favor that type of environment over time,” Drcar says. “And TCC Canada’s new location is really going to incorporate those elements of creativity and flexibility all in one.

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