Residential conversion of Centretown office building could signal COVID market transformation
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Apr 08, 2021 • 2 days ago • 3 minute read
A mid-rise office building at 331 Cooper St. is undergoing a transformation that will add dozens of homes into the Centretown rental market, a move that the property owner says fits with the current market conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have seen a decrease in demand of office space especially in the downtown area due to the current pandemic and multiple lockdowns, so we had decided that the time was right to make the conversion of this under-utilized office building to a multi-residential building as we understand there is a need for more housing in the downtown area,” said Loredana Porcari, managing director at Serco Realty Group.
The plan filed at city hall calls for the conversion of the seven-storey office building into an eight-storey residential building. The building, which has 20 office suites and dates back to the 1960s, will have 45 residential units when the project is finished. The added eighth storey will have rooftop amenity space.
The property is roughly 700 metres from the closest LRT stop at Parliament Station.
The proposal has won the heart of Coun. Catherine McKenney, who represents the downtown ward and is council’s liaison on housing and homelessness.
“This is an example of the type of development we want to see in Centretown,” McKenney said Thursday during a meeting of the planning committee, which unanimously endorsed Serco’s rezoning application and is recommending council approve the conversion during a meeting on Wednesday.
Porcari said the half of the office space in the building is currently leased.
While the office-to-residential transformation will be a first for Serco, the company has been part of conversion projects as a trade through its commercial drywall company, Porcari said.
Serco hopes to have the project done near the end of 2022.
The company also owns the nearby office building at 309 Cooper St. but it doesn’t have plans to convert it to residential, Porcari said.
Porcari said the future of central office space is worrying.
“The amount of office space available downtown is very concerning and with this ongoing pandemic and lack of help from government, I think we may see some types of businesses no longer needing these types of office spaces,” Porcari said.
City officials continue to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the downtown office market.
In a January research report on Ottawa’s office market, Colliers International noted that office availability was on the rise in the last quarter of 2020, with a decreased demand for space in the downtown core. Organizations might be considering suburban options, Colliers suggested.
Cushman and Wakefield, in its own 2020 fourth-quarter analysis, reported an office vacancy rate of 8.7 per cent in the downtown core and 11.7 per cent in Centretown.
Douglas James, the city’s manager of development review, said before the pandemic the city received inquiries to covert office buildings into residential buildings, citing 170 Metcalfe St. and 303 Rideau St. as examples.
Despite the application for an office-to-residential conversion on Cooper Street, “the city has not yet seen an increase in the number of these proposals as a result of the pandemic,” James said.
Conversions that inject residential units into existing communities are especially attractive for a city that’s trying to establish more than half of all new homes through intensification.
McKenney said conversions of office space into homes are exactly the type of development the city wants to see because it can happen quickly and be potentially more affordable for renters.
“Anyone out there who’s listening, I’d like to see more of this,” McKenney said.
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