How the owners of Place de Ville are keeping an older complex viable

While many of Ottawa’s downtown office buildings have been in limbo since the pandemic, the owners of one of the city’s largest complexes are getting creative in an effort to keep occupancy high, bring in private-sector tenants and find new uses for underused spaces.

While many of Ottawa’s downtown office buildings have been in limbo since the pandemic, the owners of one of the city's largest complexes are getting creative in an effort to keep occupancy high, bring in private-sector tenants and find new uses for underused spaces.  Since purchasing the Place de Ville office complex for $350 million in 2021, co-owners Crestpoint Real Estate Investments and Crown Realty Partners have made significant investments to bring the outdated building to life and add new features to improve the tenant experience.  “Other owners aren’t really apt to invest, because they don’t necessarily see the return on investment,” said Michael Stones, vice-president of property management at Crown, in an interview with OBJ. “In our case, the landlords at Place de Ville have been constantly looking at ways to improve the building and add amenities like the new fitness facility and, hopefully soon, a conference centre.” Located south of Sparks Street, Place de Ville is a 1.2-million-square-foot office complex spanning two city blocks on the western edge of the downtown core. The four-building complex features a four-storey podium and three towers, one of which is the tallest office building in the city.  According to Stones, the size of the complex has been an unexpected advantage in the past few years.  Among the complex’s largest tenants are the Canada Revenue Agency and Transport Canada. As the federal government works to reduce its workforce and shrink its downtown footprint and real estate portfolio, Stones said the impacts on Place de Ville have been minimal.  “The notion that bigger is better is sometimes the key when dealing with the federal government,” he said. “These are core locations for some of these agencies. So although (Public Services and Procurement Canada) has been rationalizing their overall footprint in the downtown and Greater Ottawa area, the reality is that they’ve been retrenching into some of these buildings. Transport itself occupies over 550,000 square feet at Place de Ville. Other locations might only have 15 or 20,000.” With its anchor tenants secure, Stones said the owners have been able to focus their attention, and their investment, elsewhere.  “That’s really allowed us to focus on dealing with the private sector for the remaining vacant space, knowing that the government is not necessarily going to be taking additional space in the near term,” he said.  It’s an effort that’s paying off, Stones said. “We’re probably 92 to 95 per cent leased across the whole complex. We’ve been quite strategic in terms of how we deploy capital. We look at certain spaces where there might potentially be an opportunity. So we have done some work in the background investing in that to see if there’s a way to unlock some of that hidden value.”

Recently, that’s meant getting creative. Earlier this month, Crown partnered with local arts non-profits Arts Ottawa and Cre:8, as well as the Downtown BIA, to transform a vacant Place de Ville storefront on Sparks Street into a temporary gallery, market and studio where artists can create and showcase their work. Running until the end of June, it’s a pilot project to test the “meanwhile spaces” model in Ottawa for the first time.  “Meanwhile spaces” are temporary projects that convert vacant and underutilized buildings into affordable spaces, often for artists, while the property owner looks for a permanent tenant. In addition to supporting creatives and attracting foot traffic, the model helps landlords keep properties active rather than have them sit empty until a long-term tenant can be found.  Stones said the model brings potential tenants into the space while showing off its potential uses.  “It just puts us in a better position to market the space,” he said. “Anytime a space is being used, it allows people to use their imagination as to what could be there. That’s really our ultimate goal.” The relationship with Arts Ottawa began two years ago, when Crown started reaching out to local organizations about one of the facility's more peculiar vacancies. For 25 years, Place de Ville operated a two-screen movie theatre at 300 Sparks St. in its podium building. But since the theatre’s closure in 1996, the space has sat vacant and largely untouched.  Now, Crown is looking for a potential partner to do something new with the space.  “We’ve done some work in the background, investing in it to see if there’s a way to unlock some of that hidden value, because that space is largely unnoticed and underutilized,” said Stones. “We’ve reached out to different groups to get their insights and thoughts. We haven’t landed on any one focus yet.” All of these initiatives, Stones said, are part of a larger effort to take advantage of development and revitalization efforts in the downtown core and draw more people to the western end of Sparks Street as LeBreton Flats draws more foot traffic into the area.  “We are seeing more people on the streets. We’re seeing more people on mass transit. We’re seeing more people on the highways. We’ve got new stores opening up,” he said. “We like to try things out. I would say we’re trying to look outside the box in terms of what we can do.”