Conventional office is sitting empty in downtown Kitchener, even with leasing rates as low as $1 a square foot.
It’s not that there aren’t businesses looking for office space.
Some companies are willing to pay top dollar. But what they want is far from conventional.
They’re looking for “cool spaces” inside converted factories like the Tannery building.
At the Breithaupt Block, leasing rates start at $17 a square foot. A huge difference from more traditional office spaces, which have been left empty and bare.
“The older towers have become a bit of a commodity where price is all they’re really able to trade on,” says Karl Innanen, Managing Director at Colliers International. “People will just move into it because people just need to be housed in some space.”
In the mid-1990s Kitchener’s vacancy rate hit 30%. Over the years that number has been on a slow decline. Downtown Kitchener’s vacancy rate now sits at 15%.
In comparison, the vacancy rate in Uptown Waterloo is 1%.
