Ivanhoé Cambridge is purchasing land in downtown Toronto as part of a two-building office development project from transit operator Metrolinx.
In September 2014, the real estate subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec announced an agreement to build a new GO bus terminal on the site of 81 Bay St., the location of the first of its two-building office development project, Bay Park Centre. On Wednesday, it announced that it and global real estate investment firm Hines had purchased the land at 141 Bay St. from Metrolinx.
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“Getting to this point has been a journey that Ivanhoé Cambridge began in 2007, with the acquisition of the 81 Bay St. (formerly 45 Bay) site,” said Arthur Lloyd, president of Ivanhoé Cambridge’s North American office office platform, in a release.
“A series of subsequent and sequential acquisitions of additional land and air rights over the rail corridor has allowed us to offer our future tenants a fully integrated 2.9-million-square-foot, four-hectare urban office campus with two-phased buildings and an elevated park.”
The buildings will each feature 49 floors of office and collaborative spaces, a one-acre elevated park connecting them, fitness and bicycle-parking facilities with showers exclusive to tenants, a market-style eatery and a variety of other restaurant options.
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The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has signed on as an actor tenant for the buildings, which will serve as the company’s headquarters and a campus for about 15,000 of its Toronto-area employees. CIBC will lease more than half of the office space in the two buildings. Construction is to start this spring, with the first building scheduled to be ready in 2020 and the second in 2023.