Years after declaring it was going “digital by default” during the pandemic, Shopify appears poised to start bringing workers back to its former headquarters in downtown Ottawa. The e-commerce company has signed a new 10-year lease for about 70,000 square feet of space on “several floors” at 150 Elgin St. once its current deal expires […]
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Years after declaring it was going “digital by default” during the pandemic, Shopify appears poised to start bringing workers back to its former headquarters in downtown Ottawa.
The e-commerce company has signed a new 10-year lease for about 70,000 square feet of space on “several floors” at 150 Elgin St. once its current deal expires at the end of December, an executive from the firm that co-owns and manages the building says.
Shopify’s new lease will begin on Jan. 1, 2027 and extend for a decade, Morguard assistant vice-president of property management and leasing Mike Swan said during Tuesday’s Ottawa Real Estate Forum.
Shopify currently leases about 170,000 square feet of space in the downtown office tower, which is also known as Performance Court. At the peak of Shopify’s occupancy in early 2020, more than 850 of its employees worked in the building.
But the firm has not occupied the site since March of that year, when its employees began working from home during the pandemic.
In May 2020, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lütke said most employees would probably work remotely on a permanent basis, posting on social media that Shopify was a “digital company” by default and “office centricity is over.”
Swan told OBJ that Shopify, which has been subleasing some of its former space at 150 Elgin to co-working provider TCC Canada, will initially occupy fewer floors than it did before the pandemic. But he said he expects the e-commerce giant to expand its footprint at Performance Court “sooner rather than later.”
“To me, that’s a signal of better times ahead for office spaces,” he said, adding Shopify had been in talks about signing a new deal with Morguard for a couple of years.
In an email to OBJ on Wednesday afternoon, a Shopify spokesperson said the company remains "primarily remote-first" but added that "intentional in-person time also matters."
Employees can work from Shopify's offices, including locations in Ottawa, Bellevue, Wash., Toronto, New York and Montreal, "whenever they choose," the spokesperson said. The company did not elaborate on when it intends to start reoccupying its office on Elgin Street or how many employees it anticipates will work there.
Shopify moved to Performance Court in October 2014, giving the then-new, 21-storey, 360,000-square-foot highrise instant cachet when it signed on as the marquee tenant.
With headline-grabbing features such as a go-kart track and massive state-of-the-art games room, Shopify’s HQ became a symbol of a hip new generation of Ottawa tech firms that were setting up shop in the city’s core rather than the suburban tech hub of Kanata.
But six years later, the company’s exit from Performance Court became a symbol of a dramatic shift in work habits triggered by the pandemic as tenants across North America fled office towers and workers retreated to their homes.
With private-sector and government employers alike increasingly mandating workforces back to the office, real estate experts say they’re not surprised that companies that embraced remote work earlier in the decade are reversing course.
“Real estate rides the roller-coaster of business ups and downs,” said Shawn Hamilton, a principal at Ottawa-based Proveras Commercial Realty who represents office tenants in lease negotiations.
“Certainly, Shopify pulling out (of 150 Elgin) could have been as much to do with COVID and a turbulent economic time as anything else. I think this is a positive, and hopefully it is indicative of others thinking the same thing.”
Swan said employers are realizing the benefits of gathering workers together in shared spaces where they can collaborate on projects and exchange ideas.
He said several other tenants at Performance Court are renewing leases on long-term deals, adding Morguard has issued several requests for proposals to fill the building’s remaining vacancies, which he described as “minimal.”
“To me, it’s come full circle,” he said of demand for office space. “We’re back to where we were (before COVID).”
