"Commercial tenants struggling to find room to grow in Ottawa’s tight office market likely won’t have a much easier task this year than they did in 2019, according to a new forecast from one of Canada’s largest commercial real estate firms.
Avison Young says continued growth in private-sector employment should keep office vacancy rates hovering below five per cent in the downtown core and south of seven per cent in Kanata, where many firms in the booming tech sector are bursting at the seams.
The company says office vacancy rates in the capital “are expected to decline through 2020,” and the managing director of Avison Young’s Ottawa office says he sees little relief in sight for space-strapped tenants.
“Somebody’s going to have to build something,” Michael Church told OBJ on Tuesday. “It’s just hard to find (space). It’s a challenge.”