innsertnamehere said:
Office Vacancies in Hamilton are pretty high - there is still a lot of office vacancy for growing businesses.

I'm surprised to see this building be up for conversion though. It's in better shape than a lot of office properties in the downtown and has a good size floorplate.

My understanding is that Downtown Hamilton office space struggles mostly because of access.. the reality of modern businesses in the 905 is that employees come from all over and office space needs good accessibility. A lot of buildings in Downtown have no on-site parking (even a small underground garage for execs) and parking costs drive businesses away when 60-80% of employees drive in. Geographically downtown is also off the highway network and isolated from a lot of the GTA labour market. there is a reason a lot of the office jobs in the Hamilton CMA relocated to Burlington - It's a lot easier to access the GTA talent market from there.

That, and the perception of Downtown Hamilton.

I think if we could get counter-peak GO service to Hamilton Centre you would see increased interest in Downtown Hamilton as people could counter-commute more easily from Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, and Toronto.
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I don't think office conversions make sense here. I recall an article recently that said something to the effect that the pandemic didn't have the same impact on office vacancy here that it did in other cities like Toronto and Calgary. Our relatively high rate of vacancies remained stable. I'd much rather see office-building "slum lords" like Yale invest to improve the spaces they own, or sell the buildings to companies willing to invest in the long haul. Whether there's a business case for that really does depend on access.

I dream of GO peak-period service INTO downtown. And at useful times, not so early that the trains can simply turn around and serve the outbound market.

To the other point raised above, I'm one of those who commutes from central Hamilton to Downtown Toronto. If I could have a job locally, downtown, I'd gladly take the bus from where I currently live near Gage Park. I'd even think about moving downtown, but as of now I'm more likely to go back to Burlington if I continue commuting to the Centre of the Universe, just to shorten the total time spent getting to/from work.
 
Chris R. said:
The article says the heritage protection is nullified.

Most offices are returning. Mine is moving to 4 days per week in June, and my wife is already 4 days per week. Most offices are going back in, but Hamilton isn't attracting employers because the owners of these buildings don't care about maintaining anything.
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So in the end those assholes won and got literally zero comeuppance for destroying history..
 
Chronamut said:
So in the end those assholes won and got literally zero comeuppance for destroying history..
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That's the way things seem to work, sadly. Hopefully the property is sold to someone that will put in the effort to try to at least make it look historic.
 
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ScreamingViking said:
That's the way things seem to work, sadly. Hopefully the property is sold to someone that will put in the effort to try to at least make it look historic.
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It won't. They sit on properties forever. The country needs to hold these people accountable, there needs to be consequences, because they've now just given the green light to literally everyone: "buy it, let it rot, collapse, then build whatever you want" that's historical erasure and criminal negligence and compliance by the city themselves.There needs to be a rule that if you have an empty lot and you havent done anything with it for x amount of years you're either forced to put it up for sale or the city expropriates it.
 
Today:
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