Business in Winnipeg

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

Longer commutes is subjective, a decade ago the company I work for was marketing their downtown office building for a move to an industrial park, after some employee push back they analyzed the home postal codes of the 500 employees in the office and the central downtown location with an extensive building renovation was the chosen option. Because employees live far and wide across the region relocating to one corner of the city benefited a few but negatively impacted many especially with the terrible cross town bus service Winnipeg offers.

It depends on the kind of business for sure. Quite often for professional services firms a lot of the staff will be somewhat concentrated - that is certainly what I've heard in terms of a factor that has pushed people out to the Terracon site on Kenaston as Bomberjet mentioned, for example.

I think the office market in Winnipeg is going to be pretty soft for a while now so there won't be too much construction, either downtown or in the burbs. Just the same players fighting over tenants for the foreseeable future.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by Wpg_Guy

Longer commutes is subjective, a decade ago the company I work for was marketing their downtown office building for a move to an industrial park, after some employee push back they analyzed the home postal codes of the 500 employees in the office and the central downtown location with an extensive building renovation was the chosen option. Because employees live far and wide across the region relocating to one corner of the city benefited a few but negatively impacted many especially with the terrible cross town bus service Winnipeg offers.

Sounds like my office but the scenario was the reverse. Hate driving across town.

[CoryB]

Re office leases.

It is all fallout from the pandemic. Businesses realized employees prefer to work remotely (aka from home or wherever) and it doing so instead of say leasing a whole floor at Portage and Main they can have a much smaller or even no permanent office space. That means no lease costs including the utilities, printer paper, water for the cooler, etc that all the offices have. And even if they say give employees a $100-200 a month allowance above salary for those costs the business still ends up ahead on the bottom line and the employees are happier too.

That is without even getting into the aspect of going fully remote allows for a wider candidate pool and potentially a better pool of perspective employees. About a month ago the BC government formally came out and publicly said exactly that, instead of jobs being based on Victoria when possible they will allow employees to work full time remotely from anywhere in the province. That also helps spread the economic wealth around the province. I am honestly a little surprised Manitoba hasn't done it yet as you could then have high paying government jobs in basically any location instead of having them heavily concentrated in Winnipeg.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by CoryB

Re office leases.

It is all fallout from the pandemic. Businesses realized employees prefer to work remotely (aka from home or wherever) and it doing so instead of say leasing a whole floor at Portage and Main they can have a much smaller or even no permanent office space. That means no lease costs including the utilities, printer paper, water for the cooler, etc that all the offices have. And even if they say give employees a $100-200 a month allowance above salary for those costs the business still ends up ahead on the bottom line and the employees are happier too.

That is without even getting into the aspect of going fully remote allows for a wider candidate pool and potentially a better pool of perspective employees. About a month ago the BC government formally came out and publicly said exactly that, instead of jobs being based on Victoria when possible they will allow employees to work full time remotely from anywhere in the province. That also helps spread the economic wealth around the province. I am honestly a little surprised Manitoba hasn't done it yet as you could then have high paying government jobs in basically any location instead of having them heavily concentrated in Winnipeg.

I know Shared Health has done exactly what you are referring to. I'm sure other branches of government are doing the same where applicable.

[esquire]

^ This is a two way street to some extent. I am coming across people based in other provinces working for Winnipeg-based companies and working 100% remotely.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ This is a two way street to some extent. I am coming across people based in other provinces working for Winnipeg-based companies and working 100% remotely.

At work, we already have 3 people working from home remotely. One in New Jersey, another in Alberta, and one under contract in the city. The latter comes in the office when needed for specific reasons.

[wags_in_the_peg]

Exchange Income Corporation, Winnipeg based buys BVGlazing out of Ontario. They already own Quest Windows. They were originally aerospace but really starting to diversify into other areas.

https://www.exchangeincomecorp.ca/subsidiaries

[DavefromSt.Vital]

Hampton Inn downtown now pushed back to September 26

[esquire]

Originally Posted by DavefromSt.Vital

Hampton Inn downtown now pushed back to September 26

Even that seems pretty ambitious considering how it looks right now...

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

Exchange Income Corporation, Winnipeg based buys BVGlazing out of Ontario. They already own Quest Windows. They were originally aerospace but really starting to diversify into other areas.

https://www.exchangeincomecorp.ca/subsidiaries

perimiter and calm air have the same owner weird

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by DavefromSt.Vital

Hampton Inn downtown now pushed back to September 26

Is this the addition to the old Charter House downtown? If so, impossible to meet that date. The metal framing of additional floors are up but that is it.

[Jeff]

In a sign that there is actually some life in the office sector downtown, I just noticed the inconspicuous bunker on the SE corner of Fort St. and St. Mary Ave. has TELUS signs prominently placed on it now. It was for lease for a bit after whatever was secretly operating in it forever moved out. I didn't think telcos were on the market for space, especially in Winnipeg. I was under the impression this one was one gonna stay empty for way longer than this

https://goo.gl/maps/51TfAonEDBB9uWBo8

[BKB]

Originally Posted by Jeff

In a sign that there is actually some life in the office sector downtown, I just noticed the inconspicuous bunker on the SE corner of Fort St. and St. Mary Ave. has TELUS signs prominently placed on it now. It was for lease for a bit after whatever was secretly operating in it forever moved out. I didn't think telcos were on the market for space, especially in Winnipeg. I was under the impression this one was one gonna stay empty for way longer than this

https://goo.gl/maps/51TfAonEDBB9uWBo8

Unfortunately, it is a data centre.

[wags_in_the_peg]

Originally Posted by Jeff

In a sign that there is actually some life in the office sector downtown, I just noticed the inconspicuous bunker on the SE corner of Fort St. and St. Mary Ave. has TELUS signs prominently placed on it now. It was for lease for a bit after whatever was secretly operating in it forever moved out. I didn't think telcos were on the market for space, especially in Winnipeg. I was under the impression this one was one gonna stay empty for way longer than this

https://goo.gl/maps/51TfAonEDBB9uWBo8

Datacentre for Telus hosting services. Signs been up for at least 2 months I believe

[OTA in Winnipeg]

^wasn't Royal Bank previously in there? Also as a data center?

[esquire]

^ Yes, I believe it was RBC at one point. Although Googling reveals that more recently than that, it was possibly Symcor, a fintech company associated with banks, which has since moved to the old IBM Building on Ellice.

[thurmas]

downtown office vacancy rate at 17% as per free press this morning

[esquire]

^ The new normal across Canada, it seems. Every major downtown was in the double digits back in April's report. https://www.cbre.ca/insights/figures...igures-q1-2023

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by thurmas

downtown office vacancy rate at 17% as per free press this morning

Are rents going down?

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by borkborkbork

Are rents going down?

I don't know free press has paywall and I don't subscribe to them anymore since their editorial is no longer neutral like it used to be