Downtown revitalization efforts continue
It was a big year for downtown revitalization. In January, Yasir Naqvi’s downtown revitalization task force released its long-awaited report outlining the region’s biggest challenges and offering potential solutions. A few months later, the Ottawa Board of Trade followed up on those efforts with the release of its downtown action agenda, setting out a five-year timeline to bring new life into the core.
One of the first major steps since the agenda was released will be to create a “downtown vibrancy office,” OBOT president and CEO Sueling Ching told OBJ last month. The group will be responsible for raising seed funding – $350,000 to start, from public and private sources – and serving the new champions table, details of which will be announced early in 2025.
A new “downtown vibrancy office” will get off the ground in the beginning of 2025, with support from the provincial government, which is providing $450,000 as part of its $20-million “New Deal” for Ottawa.
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Following the next steps at LeBreton Flats
2024 was the year the Ottawa Senators took a major step toward potentially building an arena near the downtown core, after years of speculation.
In September, the hockey club announced that it had reached an agreement in principle to buy 10 acres of land from the National Capital Commission to build a new arena at LeBreton Flats, but it will be “years, not months, before shovels are in the ground,” according to Senators CEO Cyril Leeder.
Both sides stressed there is much work to be done before the deal is finalized, including soil remediation and other environmental studies, as well as negotiations with Indigenous communities.
Leeder said the new arena will likely be similar in size to the Canadian Tire Centre, with a capacity of 16,000-17,000 people. It would also include newer amenities and improved loading zones, with the hope of doubling the number of shows the facility can host. The estimated cost is in the billions of dollars.
What will the new events venue on Rideau St. bring?
The National Capital Commission kicked off 2024 by purchasing the former Chapters bookstore at 47-57 Rideau St. in January for $21.8 million. In June, the NCC signed a deal with Live Nation Canada to turn the space into a live music and entertainment venue.
The NCC said it hopes the new facility will bring “renewed life” to an area of the city that has struggled to attract visitors and shoppers in the wake of the pandemic.
The 60,000-square-foot building will feature a 2,000-seat hall, something Live Nation Entertainment’s Erik Hoffman said in October is needed in the city. The venue will be designed to accommodate a wide range of live shows, Hoffman added, with general admission seating on the main level that can be expanded or reduced as necessary.
The venue’s potential economic impact is pegged at $1.2 billion, according to the NCC, with completion expected by late 2025.
Glimpsing the future of high-speed rail
Will a high-speed rail line along the Toronto-Quebec City corridor see progress in 2025? The Ottawa Board of Trade and other business groups hope so.
In October, OBOT joined five other chambers of commerce and boards of trade, sending a letter to Transport Minister Anita Anand to urge the federal government to move ahead with the Via high-frequency rail project.
OBOT president and CEO Sueling Ching said bold moves on infrastructure are needed to address the country’s looming “productivity crisis.” She added the proposed high-speed rail project – which would extend over 1,000 kilometres with trains that could reach 200 kilometres per hour – would position the corridor as a global business hub and enhance the visitor economy.
The project was first proposed by Via Rail in 2016 and announced by the federal government in 2021. Completion was first projected for 2030, but has since been pushed to the mid-2030s.
Who will snap up 150 Slater St.?
One of downtown Ottawa’s marquee office towers went up for sale in 2024, as real estate brokers warned the city had lost its lustre for institutional investors amid continued uncertainty about the future of office properties in the core.
The 18-storey highrise at 150 Slater St. hit the market in September. Crown corporation Export Development Canada occupies 98 per cent of the building and has a long-term lease that is scheduled to expire in 2031.
CBRE, which is marketing the building on behalf of building owner Manulife, said the sale represents “a rare opportunity to acquire a trophy downtown office building in the central business district on a 100 per cent interest basis,” citing a shortage of development in Ottawa’s core.
But the listing is part of a concerning trend for real estate insiders such as Real Strategy Advisors CEO Darren Fleming, who told OBJ Ottawa’s office market is “much riskier than it’s ever been at any time in recent history.”
Fullscript and the US$1B revenue mark
One of Ottawa’s brightest tech stars is edging closer to reaching a monumental revenue milestone.
In October, health-care platform Fullscript closed a deal to acquire San Francisco-based startup Rupa Health, a 190-person company that gives Fullscript a level of diagnostic expertise the firm lacked even as it was developing its own lab workflow platform.
It’s a deal that has pushed the company “really close” to US$1 billion in annual revenues, a landmark goal that co-founder and CEO Kyle Braatz said he’s targeted for years.
Now that goal is closer than ever and could be realized as soon as next year, according to Braatz: “We will hit that number in 2025. This definitely gets us a little bit closer to that.”
Ross Video, minus the IPO
Ross Video CEO David Ross initially had plans to take the company public in 2025, but in November he told OBJ he was reconsidering that idea.
Ross said talks with potential investors about his plans to launch an initial public offering in 2025 led him to conclude that his company would not achieve the valuation he had hoped for in the public markets.
He added that the emphasis for publicly traded companies to hit quarterly targets is at odds with his philosophy of making investments in people and technology that are designed to pay off over the long haul.
While an IPO is not off the table completely, Ross said he’ll be focusing his attention on the private equity side of things in 2025, while pushing toward a half-billion dollars in annual revenue.
Barrhaven Broccolini warehouse slated to be built
The developer behind two mega-warehouses in the National Capital Region announced plans in November to build another massive fulfilment centre in Barrhaven that would create as many as 2,500 new jobs.
Montreal-based Broccolini filed a proposal to construct a five-storey, 3.1-million-square-foot distribution facility about a kilometre southeast of the intersection of Woodroffe Avenue and Fallowfield Road. Broccolini is working with GKC Architecture & Design on the proposal, which it dubbed “Project X.”
In a transportation impact assessment filed with the site plan application, Broccolini says it plans to construct the building in a single phase and is aiming to complete the project in 2026.
If the project goes ahead, it would be the third and largest major fulfilment centre Broccolini has constructed in the Ottawa region.
Nokia to transform Kanata North campus
Nokia Canada is building nearly 600,000 square feet of office, R&D and retail space on March Road as part of its plan to turn its current Kanata North campus into a commercial and residential hub that could eventually include nearly 2,000 housing units.
The first phase of the project at 570 March Rd. will include roughly 592,000 square feet of new construction, with completion targeted for 2027.
The Finnish telecom giant says it wants to transform its 26-acre campus at the Kanata North Business Park into a “sustainable, accessible mixed-use corporate, residential and commercial hub where nearly 2,160 local employees, Ottawa residents and businesses and Canada’s entire tech ecosystem can collaborate, innovate and drive Canadian and global well-being and prosperity.”
It added that it planned to invest more than $340 million between 2023 and 2027 to expand its current Kanata site into a “world-leading” R&D facility focused on areas such as cybersecurity, 5G networks, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Still waiting for deets on the federal real estate portfolio
The federal government has big plans to significantly reduce its real estate portfolio, a decision that will be especially impactful in Ottawa.
In 2023, the federal government released a “disposal list” of several properties in the National Capital Region that it’s planning to cull from its portfolio, including L’Esplanade Laurier, the Sir Charles Tupper Building on Riverside Drive, and the 1500 Bronson Building and Annex.
An updated plan released in August identified 22 Ottawa properties that could be suitable for long-term leases, so developers could build affordable housing. It’s a process that will take years, according to Public Services and Procurement Canada, which told OBJ in an email that “it is still early in the process” and no sales are imminent. The process may be further delayed by a federal election in 2025.
