Insider Only Ottawa, Real Estate

Sky’s the limit: Former Chapters location ‘prime’ spot for a mixed-use highrise, broker says

June 9, 2023

Michael Church, the managing director of Avison Young’s Ottawa office, called the former Chapters space at 47 Rideau St. a “prime” site for a highrise multi-residential project.

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While Nordstrom’s imminent departure from the Rideau Centre has left downtown Ottawa’s biggest shopping mall in a state of flux, a prominent commercial space across the street is also poised to undergo a transformation. The former home of Chapters bookstore at 47 Rideau St. was put on the market in April, CBRE senior vice-president Jamie Boyce, whose firm is representing the vendor, told OBJ this week. The veteran broker said the building’s current owner is a Quebec-based entity that’s connected to an “international” company. He wouldn’t reveal any details about potential bidders or what stage the sale process is at. The two-storey building includes about 42,000 square feet of space above ground and 19,000 square feet below grade. Chapters occupied the property from 1996 until last year. Indigo Books & Music, which bought the Chapters chain in 2001, moved to a smaller location in the Rideau Centre last fall. Boyce said the ongoing shift to e-commerce means the company requires less storage space for books at individual stores. “It’s a continuously evolving industry based on what consumer demands are,” he said. While the site has been a major component of downtown Ottawa’s retail landscape for decades, one leading commercial broker thinks the property could find new life as part of a much larger mixed-use development. Michael Church, the managing director of Avison Young’s Ottawa office, called the former Chapters space a “prime” site for a highrise multi-residential project. “There’s got to be an opportunity there,” he said. “I would have to think that the buyer of that is going to be a build-to-suit apartment or condo user in the future.” Business leaders view the Rideau Street corridor as an important element of a broader campaign to revitalize the city’s core as downtown office towers have emptied out amid a widespread shift to hybrid work during the pandemic. Those efforts were in the spotlight Friday morning, when the Ottawa Board of Trade called on the federal government to provide “real and meaningful” support to downtown merchants as it begins to dispose of some of its aging office buildings in the core. As the city looks to create more “15-minute neighbourhoods” where people can live within walking distance of transit and amenities such as shopping and restaurants, properties like the Rideau Street space could be part of the solution. The former Chapters building is right in the heart of the central business district, Church noted, with a major shopping mall and light-rail station just steps away and a plethora of major tourist attractions in the vicinity. In a promotional brochure, CBRE describes the property as a “once-in-a-lifetime big-box opportunity for a brand.” Church agrees the site is well-suited to ground-floor retail, but he believes the next owner of the property will see even more opportunities looking skyward. “You’ll have that kind of a (retail) flavour to it, but I’ve got to think it’s residential above at some point,” he explained.