Canada’s office vacancy crisis is a real estate opportunity for everyone – yes, including landlords
The Globe and Mail
Canada's national news organization 📧 Sign up for our Morning Update newsletter: https://tgam.ca/daily-newsletter
Hello, readers! Welcome back to Business Cycle – a look at what The Globe and Mail’s business columnists are talking about this week. In the latest edition, we’re talking about Canada’s office vacancy crisis, the Canadian cities with the most real millionaires and why TD Bank’s next boss will have the best job in banking.
(Don’t forget - Subscribe to this newsletter from The Globe and Mail’s LinkedIn page to get a notification when the latest edition is published every Thursday.)
Canada’s office vacancy crisis is also an incredible real estate opportunity
By Tony Keller
Canada’s downtowns are facing a crush of rising office vacancies, specifically empty office towers and empty floors. A recent Globe and Mail analysis found that this issue is particularly acute in the biggest downtown of all, Toronto, with five million square feet of available space across 47 office towers.
So, what do you do with all that empty space? Columnist Tony Keller writes that the vacancies, while they might seem like a major crisis for landlords, represent a unique real estate opportunity for everyone else.
“For landlords facing fallow square footage and falling rents, there’s a financial imperative to figure out how to transform underused space into something more valuable. And for a crop of businesses and institutions that never used to be able to afford a downtown address, there may be the opportunity to move from the suburbs – where your millennial and Gen Z employees do not want to be – to the centre of the action.”
What’s the solution to the rising office vacancy rates in Canada’s largest cities? Check out the full opinion piece here.
Instead of importing millionaires, Canada needs to produce more of them
Which of Canada’s largest cities have the most real millionaires? According to the annual World’s Wealthiest Cities report, which tallies the wealthiest cities in the world by their number of liquid millionaires, only two Canadian cities made the Top 50 list. Toronto was given the 13th spot, and Vancouver landed in the 31st spot.
Columnist Konrad Yakabuski writes that many countries have been trying to attract high-net-worth immigrants from China, India and other emerging countries to entice investment and overall help a city’s economic status. But, if so, Canadians might have reason to be concerned.
Recommended by LinkedIn
“Perhaps the lesson here is that, instead of importing millionaires, maybe Canada needs to do a better job at producing them. Raising the capital-gains tax inclusion rate, as Ottawa’s latest budget proposes, will not help do that. If the critics are right, it could even prompt some of our existing millionaires to leave.”
Do you think producing more home-grown Canadian millionaires is the solution to the country’s economic growth? Share your thoughts in the comments and check out the full opinion piece here.
At TD Bank, the best job in banking is up for grabs
Right now, it may seem like running Toronto-Dominion Bank is not an especially fun task. The bank is undergoing multiple regulatory investigations into money laundering and could face both monetary and non-monetary penalties.
Analysts and investors have pointed to concerns around the bank’s growth prospects and its succession plans. But as CEO Bharat Masrani begins to wind down his run in the coming years, columnist Andrew Willis writes that being TD’s next boss is arguably the best job in banking.
“It may not look like it today, but being TD’s next boss is the best job in banking. For all the well-deserved attention investors are giving to anti-money-laundering shortfalls at TD, this is a one-time problem at the bank, rather than a structural issue. Any CEO would take a problem that can be solved by spending money – which describes TD’s woes – to a strategic challenge like being a regional player in a sector dominated by larger, better-capitalized rivals.”
Do you agree that TD Bank’s next CEO will have the best job in banking? Check out the full opinion piece here.
More business columns we’re following this week:
The Globe's business opinion pieces are commissioned and edited by Ethan Lou. If you would like to write in this section, please send pitches to elou@globeandmail.com.
Thank you for reading our latest edition! We'll be back next Thursday with another Business Cycle roundup.
Until then, sign up for more great newsletters from The Globe and Mail and continue reading at www.theglobeandmail.com. And let us know what you think by sending an email to audience@globeandmail.com.