Raise the Hammer

Occupied for 25 years, vacant for 16.

Three storeys at 14,340 to 16,667 square feet per plate, leasing at $13.25 per square foot.


http://www.realpropertieslimited.com/hamilton/1-james-street-north-description.html

http://www.realpropertieslimited.com/hamilton/1-james-street-north-availability.html


Lovely as it is, the Lister's upper floors would have taken eons to lease out at almost $35 per square foot.

Great interview Ryan & Joe! Thank you for the great contributions you both make to this city. It is much appreciated and definitely needed.

This is such an incredible space that I can't believe no one has taken it over on a permanent basis.

As someone who has been perusing what is available I can tell you there is a glut of office space available in downtown Hamilton right now. Many of the buildings have multiple floors completely vacant. 100 King West alone has over 200,000 sq/ft available.

I will never understand why companies insist on building 1-story office parks on random stretches of service road instead of taking great spaces like that. Cheaper parking is not worth spending half your life commuting to the middle of nowhere.

And that is just one of many great spaces. The old Landed Banking and Loan building at 1 Main St. E has the entire 2 and 3 floors available. Very cool space. You can get entire top floors of some of the office towers downtown with amazing views of the lake for half of the going rate in other nearby cities. It really is crazy that these places sit empty.

Is the stigma of this city really that strong? Is our economy really that bad? Maybe all day GO can make a difference? I don't know, but it would be nice for downtown Hamilton to be more than a facade of tall buildings with very little actually inside.

Is the stigma of this city really that strong?

Met a woman recently who is fluent in American sign language. When she found out I was from Hamilton, she told me that this is the sign for Hamilton.

To them, it is. We've still got a long way to go to buck that trend. Price Waterhouse Cooper just left downtown for a building just like that in Oakville.

StatsCan 2006 Community Profiles

Occupation
Business, finance and administration occupations

#1 occupation in City of Mississauga: 84,990 of 369,730 (23.5% of labour force)
#1 occupation in City of Brampton: 53,675/236,265 (22.7% of labour force)
#2 occupation in Town of Oakville: 18,860/91,150 (20.1% of labour force)
#2 occupation in Town of Milton: 6,765/32,605 (20.8% of labour force)
#2 occupation in City of Burlington: 18,360/91,725 (20.0% of labour force)
#3 occupation in City of Hamilton: 42,610/258,755 (16.5% labour force)

Major field of study
Business, management and public administration

#1 in Town of Oakville: 22,525/130,205 (17.3% of labour force)
#1 in City of Burlington 19,255/132,695 (14.5% of labour force)
#1 in City of Mississauga: 75,240/532,560 (14.1% of labour force)
#1 in Town of Milton: 5,420/41,910 (12.9% of labour force)
#1 in City of Brampton: 38,460/332,235 (11.6% of labour force)
#2 in City of Hamilton 37,140/407,590 (9.1% of labour force)

http://goo.gl/h3Gqs

But in Oakville, everything will be new. LEED-certified "green" building, with natural light for everyone. And walking distance to the GO train.

"We didn’t need two offices," Kothari says. They wanted a location that works for both Hamilton and Mississauga employees, all of whom will move to the new office. This location will be a good deal handier for those just coming from Mississauga, but there are more of them.

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/talk/story/2012/11/12/hamilton-pricewaterhouse.html

http://www.pembina.org/pub/2354

Toronto is seeing huge new commercial investment downtown after decades of suburban flight. New office towers, major firms all moving back downtown.

Hamilton is smarter to try to lure the smaller regional HQ's and sub-offices, but I imagine we're years, or decades away from having a downtown so attractive and so desirable that firms are willing to bypass the huge parking lots in favour of urban locales. Onward and upward....

I imagine it's the allure of proximity to the highway and the fabulous lunch buffet at Tucker's Marketplace.

You just gave this ex- Oakvillian (Oakvill-ite, Oakvill-er?) a good laugh at the the end of a long day.

Hahaha... awesome. I actually like Tuckers... but that post was funny.