In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shopify Inc.'s Tobi Lutke was among the first tech leaders to declare most of his staff would "permanently work remotely" because "office centricity is over."
Google will similarly takeover a new building at 65 King St. E. in Toronto, despite Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai requiring staff work only three days a week in office. Shopify and Google, for example, announced Toronto offices before the health crisis helped make remote and hybrid work widespread. The firms behind The Well, Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust and RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, said after exercising its first option to expand to an additional 90,000 square feet in June 2020, Shopify declined another 90,000 square feet. RioCan added Shopify's total leased space will now total 340,000 square feet.
CBRE found downtown Toronto's office vacancy rate was two per cent pre-pandemic -- the lowest in North America and the third lowest in the world by Case's count. It's since jumped to 11.6 per cent, a rate he still considers "healthy."