Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes is calling the federal government’s recent decision to move one million square feet of federal office space out of Centretown bad news for area businesses.
The expected re-location is the Nortel Networks campus, which the federal government recently purchased for $208 million.
“This is a conditional agreement for the purchase and sale of the complex,” says John McBain, assistant deputy minister for the real property branch of public works. He adds the agreement still needs to be brought before a treasury board for approval.
He says the property, which comprises 12 buildings, could be taken over sometime early next year.
“I’m amazed that the federal government, in this day and age of environmental thinking, would move that well-travelled area of the downtown out to an area that doesn’t have a lot of public transit,” Holmes says. She says she believes the move will force many civil servants to use cars to get to work.
But Claude Séguin of public works and government services says the decision to vacate the office space stems from the need for newer, more efficient buildings closer to public transit.
The move has some experts fearing that the area’s vacancy rate, which currently sits at about five per cent, will double over the next few years.
But Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA, says she believes the vacated buildings won’t sit empty for long. She says there may even be some advantages to the re-location.
She says the move has the potential to attract new residents as she feels many of the vacated buildings will be converted into housing units.
But Holmes isn't convinced.
“The federal government is putting $600 million into a project to improve light rail,” she says. “And then they’re moving employees out to an area that has little to no public transit.”
“It’s exactly the opposite of how we want to be planning our city.”