Edmonton City Staff Prepare to Move into New Office Tower

City of Edmonton officials announced plans Thursday to move thousands of city staff members into one new downtown building in 2016. The city said Thursday that an agreement had been reached with the EAD First Street Building Corporation, with a 20-year lease for 350,000 square feet of space. The building, which is expected to be completed in the summer of 2016, will be built on the corner of 104 Avenue and 101 Street.

More information to follow:

Construction on the $300 million, 27 storey tower is expected to begin in the spring.

The winning proposal by the Edmonton Arena Development Group, made up of The Katz Group and WAM Developments, was chosen from 14 submissions; the city said the entire process was reviewed by an external fairness advisor, and two independent reviewers.

“We’ll have approximately 65 percent of our downtown staff in the new building,” Gary Klassen, GM of Edmonton Sustainable Development said Thursday.

New Trends in Condo Buying Emerging in the Toronto Area

 A few new trends to watch out for in the Toronto area when it comes to buying homes as well as buying condos. When it comes to buying homes, the latest tactic is to put a property which had previously been listed on the MLS system, on a bidding site, or list through an auction house to get buyers, sending the price of single detached homes soaring.

 As for condos the latest buying technique is the new trend with regards to micro housing, or micro condo living. And we’re seeing now, specifically designed condos to meet that purpose. Another new trend to look out for is the lack of supply in the purpose built rental housing market in Toronto. Even as new condos come online there remains a shortage of apartments built specific to that purpose, so condo rentals have increased even as vacancy climbs, rentals rates do as well.

 Busy Condo Market Boosts Toronto Home Sales 

With fewer homes in the detached category available in Toronto, new home buyers seem to be opting for new condos, with sales heading forward at a rocket pace last month. Sales of Existing Homes in the Toronto area moved up by a whopping 2.1% in February 2014, and that is compared to the same time period last year. That was mainly due to a 12.5% increase in the sales of condos within the city so stated by the Toronto Real Estate Board. That will contrasts with the sales declines that occurred in townhomes, detached and semi-detached housing during the month, which was mainly due to a constrained supply of those housing types.