Morguard’s pending sale of a 14-storey tower at 131 Queen St. to the federal government breaks a bit of a dry spell for Ottawa’s office investment market.

The $148.2-million transaction, which is expected to close by the end of August, is the biggest office sale in the Ottawa region since March 2024, when Public Services and Procurement Canada bought the CBC headquarters building at nearby 181 Queen St. for $125.3 million from Morguard. 

If that’s any indication, it’s been a while since a private investor bought into Ottawa’s office market in a big way.

With occupancy rates remaining stagnant amid a tepid return to the office in downtown Ottawa, institutional investors have been content to stay on the sidelines for the past few years.

In fact, the last eye-popping office transaction involving a private-sector buyer occurred in the spring of 2023, when Montreal-based Groupe Mach acquired the 27-storey highrise at 160 Elgin St. from H&R REIT for $277 million.

But now, with the federal government poised to send employees back to the office four days a week and many private-sector employers ramping up return-to-office mandates, could the National Capital Region become a haven for private capital once again?

Scott Brooker, a vice-president at Cushman & Wakefield Ottawa who specializes in brokering investment transactions, says he thinks an uptick in investment activity in larger centres such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver could be a harbinger of things to come for the nation’s capital.

“There certainly seems to be more interest in Ottawa, more activity overall just generally for investment properties,” Brooker said in a recent interview. 

“I think as the macroeconomic conditions around office and return-to-office strengthen, not just in Ottawa but across the board, we’re starting to see investment come back to office. If you look at Toronto and Vancouver, you’re starting to see large office transactions starting to happen again, where they really weren’t happening over the last couple of years.”

Shawn Hamilton, a principal at Proveras Commercial Realty, said he thinks it might still be a while before private capital starts to flow into the local office market in a major way.

“I think institutional investors are waiting to see what the future of the government footprint is in downtown Ottawa,” Hamilton told OBJ on Monday. 

“Right now, there are so many different conflicting stories of (the federal government’s office needs). I think now that there’s been the (four-day-a-week) return-to-office mandate, I think it will take a few months to sort of see how things play out.”

In the meantime, several large privately owned office properties that have been shopped around over the past few years remain unsold. Here’s the latest on three of the biggest Ottawa office complexes that were on the market in recent months:

CARLING EXECUTIVE CENTRE

This three-building office complex at 1525, 1545 and 1565 Carling Ave. was originally put up for sale by owner Crown Realty Partners in late 2023 after the Toronto firm, which bought the building in 2019 for $56.5 million, overhauled the property management team and poured more than $2 million into upgrades such as a fitness facility and a restaurant.

While brokerage firm Avison Young told OBJ in March 2025 that the complex had been “conditionally sold” to a local investor group, the Carling Executive Centre remains the property of Crown Realty. According to that company’s website, the 291,000-square-foot complex has a vacancy rate of about 15 per cent.

Asked last week whether the buildings were still for sale, Crown Realty managing partner Emily Hanna said the Carling Executive Centre “is fully stabilized and outperforming the underwriting assumptions we set when we first evaluated bringing it to market.”

The property’s “performance since we initially began marketing it underscores our conviction that well-located, thoughtfully repositioned, and professionally managed assets can deliver durable cash flow and create optionality in any market environment,” Hanna said in an email to OBJ on Monday, adding she had “nothing more to report on that front.”

150 SLATER ST.

This 477,448-square-foot, class-A property owned by Manulife Investment Management has been the headquarters of Export Development Canada, a federal Crown corporation, since it opened 15 years ago.

EDC, which occupies 98 per cent of the building, has a long-term lease that expires in 2031. The remainder of the tower is leased to ground-floor retailers.

Real estate firm CBRE began marketing the 18-storey tower in September 2024. 

A CBRE marketing brochure described 150 Slater as being “ideally positioned for both public as well as private sector tenancy given its strategic position within the (central business district) and proximity to Parliament Hill and all major attractions and transit stations.”

Citing a shortage of development land and a “lack of quality investment-grade” assets in Ottawa’s core, the firm added the building represents “a rare opportunity to acquire a trophy downtown office building in the central business district on a 100 per cent interest basis.”

While real estate experts said they expected the building to garner plenty of interest from potential buyers, including the federal government, it remains in Manulife’s hands. The property is no longer listed on CBRE’s website.

Manulife did not reply to requests for an update on the status of 150 Slater St. A spokesman for CBRE said no one from the company would be available to discuss the building.

275 SLATER ST.

Built in 1968, this 20-storey highrise on the northeast corner of Kent and Slater streets is owned by LaSalle Investment Management. Renovated in 1990, the class-B tower is home to several foreign embassies, including Italy and Azerbaijan, and other tenants that include Tim Hortons.   

Recent marketing material from Cushman & Wakefield, the leasing broker for 275 Slater, pegs the 227,000-square-foot highrise’s vacancy rate at about 21 per cent. But C&W vice-president Jessica Whiting told OBJ last week the amount of empty space at 275 Slater has been shrinking of late, thanks in part to LaSalle’s efforts to spruce up the building with the addition of five fully furnished model suites.

Whiting said the suites, which range from 1,200 to 5,700 square feet, are now fully leased.

“We’re getting lots of deals done there, which is great. I think when landlords are proactive that way, it really helps,” Whiting said, adding that 275 Slater is “competing with some of the class-A buildings” in Ottawa’s downtown core for blue-chip tenants such as professional associations.

While CBRE had been shopping the building on LaSalle’s behalf, it no longer appears on the company’s website. CBRE would not comment when asked about the building’s status this week.

A high-profile commercial real estate executive who did not want to be identified said he suspects investors are shying away from the properties because they are “concerned with the depth” of the Ottawa leasing market in the absence of any large-scale leasing from the federal government, the region’s biggest occupier of office space. 

“These are all buildings that would have traded with greater liquidity during normal times, and all of them are what I would call good buildings,” he said in an email to OBJ this week.

“These would be cash-flow/investment transactions as opposed to redevelopment transactions, so it all boils down to how bullish people are about future leasing and the rents that they will be able to achieve.”