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AHK said:
THE REAL: Judging by all the recent high vacancy in the core, i doubt any more office towers will be built after the second phase of CIBC square.



Some thoughts on the longer term perspective. But first a brief comment on the present state. The past couple of years have seen a large amount of new product delivered or about to be so in downtown, and near downtown Toronto: the CIBC Square buildings, TD Terrace, the EQ Bank building and T3 Bayside to the east, Portland Commons, QRC West Phase 2, T3 Sterling Road and the office areas of 57 Spadina (The Taylor), and Liberty Market Tower. The office space in the buildings which have been completed but not yet leased counts as available, impacting the overall occupancy rates - beyond what would be caused by the fall-out from Covid-19, and the increased levels of work from home. Other factors impacting the office market would include the normal ebb and flow of the economic cycles (in particular cut-backs in some areas of the financial services sector and technology companies) which has now been combined with a period of increased interest rates which tends to suppress new business formations and start ups.

All these factors coming together at the same time have obviously combined for a major hit to the Toronto office market. To some extent, the surprise is that the impact has not been worse than it has.

However as the saying goes: Demographics is Destiny. The year over year, March 2023 to March 2024 population growth in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area was 263,000, a growth rate of 4.6% - far exceeding, in both total numbers and percentage rate the comparable growth in either Montreal or Vancouver. And the 263,000 increase does not include the population growth in the Hamilton (which includes Burlington), or Oshawa (which includes Whitby) CMA's. While Calgary may have a larger percentage growth rate than Toronto, it is a much smaller city and the actual size of its annual increase in population is much less.

On the housing side of the equation, there in a large supply of new residential accommodation coming onto the market in downtown Toronto - many new buildings have been completed recently and are now in the lease up and occupancy stages. The population density within the inner city is growing rapidly.

The most recent office building to go into the ground would be Phase 2 of CIBC Square. Nothing more of any material size appears to be imminent. So an at least five year, possibly more, gap will occur between CIBC Square Phase 2 occupancy, and availability of new office product take place downtown.

Some predictions: Interest rates will come down, with an associated recovery in new business formations and start ups. While there will still be some office space downsizing to work its way through, after the present completions the lack of new supply will result in an at first gradual, and then more quickly, increasing occupancy levels. Commute times will continue to be a downtown Toronto office occupancy headwind, but the increasing number of people living downtown along with the ongoing GO and TTC transit improvements will progressively help to offset. Also for consideration - while there will be some ongoing office development in the suburbs, they will never become a substitute for the downtown Toronto business core - the suburban markets will be increasingly constrained by their own traffic woes and lack of transit infrastructure. The density and diversity of people skills and talent available within the City will mean that organizations wishing to tap into that people market will continue to be incented to have a presence in downtown Toronto.

What has changed is the balance, the ratio in the need for residential accommodation compared to additional office space. It is good to see that the City appears to have come to its senses and is now allowing new buildings on sites where there had previously been some commercial space to proceed without an office space replacement requirement - allowing the space to be used for additional residential units.

So - definitely a hiatus in development of new office towers, but within several years, the planning process for the next tower should be starting, with ground breaking a couple of years after the start of planning.

Exactly when, and which site will it be - well that remains to be seen.
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Great! Btw where did you get the growth number for this last year?
 
rdaner said:
Great! Btw where did you get the growth number for this last year?
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Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey report for March 2024, published on April 5. Details for Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver specifically for the month of March are contained in Table 8. The data for other cities in Canada at a more summary, three month moving average basis is contained in Table 7.
 
@rdaner this is the link @AHK is discussing:

Labour Market Indicators, by province and census metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted

This web application provides access to Statistics Canada's Labour Market Indicators for Canada, by province and by census metropolitan area. This dynamic application allows users to view geographical rankings for each labour market indicator and to create quick and easy reports with interactive...
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

This puts the GTA at 5.996M as at March '24 (Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham (excludes Oshawa)

Hamilton at 694.2 (subtotal: 6,690.2M )

K-W-C: 541.8 (7.232M)

Barrie: 191.3 (7.423.3)

St. Kitts-Niagara: 390.5 (7.813.8M)

Guelph: 149.1 (7.962.9M)

Oshawa: 364 (8.326.9M)

Ptbo: 119.2 (8.446.1M)

That is not the entire GGH, which is over 10M at this point, as it omits a lot of the in-between spaces (ie. Orangeville) and some fringe ones, like Brantford.

* populations above are only for those 15yrs of age and older
 
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Northern Light said:
@rdaner this is the link @AHK is discussing:

Labour Market Indicators, by province and census metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted

This web application provides access to Statistics Canada's Labour Market Indicators for Canada, by province and by census metropolitan area. This dynamic application allows users to view geographical rankings for each labour market indicator and to create quick and easy reports with interactive...
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

The put the GTA at 5.996M as at March '24 (Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham (excludes Oshawa)

Hamilton at 694.2 (subtotal: 6,690.2M )

K-W-C: 541.8 (7.232M)

Barrie: 191.3 (7.423.3)

St. Kitts-Niagara: 390.5 (7.813.8M)

Guelph: 149.1 (7.962.9M)

Oshawa: 364 (8.326.9M)

Ptbo: 119.2 (8.446.1M)

That is not the entire GGH, which is over 10M at this point, as it omits a lot of the in-between spaces (ie. Orangeville) and some fringe ones, like Brantford.
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The detailed Labour Force statistics are reported monthly in the regular Statistics Canada release The Daily, issued Monday to Friday at 8:30 AM (except Government of Canada holidays):

The Daily — In the news: Statistics Canada's official release bulletin.

Stay up to date on all the latest news, information and articles from Canada's national statistical agency.
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

The Daily usually contains a number of releases. On the days when the Labour Force Survey is released, it has always been the first item in the release.

The LFS is issues on the first or sometimes the second Friday of the a month - typically it is the first Friday except when that Friday falls on the first or second day of the month, in which case the LFS is released on the second Friday. The schedule of releases can be found at:

Release schedule – All releases

View all the releases that were published in The Daily since April 2012 as well as the upcoming dates for key indicators.
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

so it is easy to determine (by clicking on the first and second Fridays in the calendar) on which day the LFS will be issued.

Selecting the Labour Force Survey topic will lead to the detailed write up for the month in question. At the end of the narrative section of the release is the list of Tables - currently twelve in all. Table 8 contains the specific data for the Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver Census Metropolitan Areas. The most recent release, Table 8 for March 2024, released on April 5, can be seen here:

Labour force characteristics by Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver census metropolitan areas, monthly, seasonally adjusted

none
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca
 
Northern Light said:
@rdaner this is the link @AHK is discussing:

Labour Market Indicators, by province and census metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted

This web application provides access to Statistics Canada's Labour Market Indicators for Canada, by province and by census metropolitan area. This dynamic application allows users to view geographical rankings for each labour market indicator and to create quick and easy reports with interactive...
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

The put the GTA at 5.996M as at March '24 (Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham (excludes Oshawa)

Hamilton at 694.2 (subtotal: 6,690.2M )

K-W-C: 541.8 (7.232M)

Barrie: 191.3 (7.423.3)

St. Kitts-Niagara: 390.5 (7.813.8M)

Guelph: 149.1 (7.962.9M)

Oshawa: 364 (8.326.9M)

Ptbo: 119.2 (8.446.1M)

That is not the entire GGH, which is over 10M at this point, as it omits a lot of the in-between spaces (ie. Orangeville) and some fringe ones, like Brantford.
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careful with these as the populations are 15+ - not total population. Total population will be higher once you include those under the age of 15.
 
innsertnamehere said:
careful with these as the populations are 15+ - not total population. Total population will be higher once you include those under the age of 15.
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I missed that.

Do you happen to know the formula for adding that demo back in the GTA?
 
innsertnamehere said:
I'd look at 2021 census data and add the approximate percentage that children under 15 represented as a proportion of the population. Won't give you an exact figure, but would be fairly close.
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* age grouping for the country, I didn't drill down for any sub-national numbers.

That's 16.3%, which make the remaining cohort 83.7% and the forumla: 1.145 x

For the listed CMAs I got a total over 15 population of: 8.446.1M x 1.145 = 9,712,000
 
Northern Light said:
* age grouping for the country, I didn't drill down for any sub-national numbers.

That's 16.3%, which make the remaining cohort 83.7% and the forumla: 1.145 x

For the listed CMAs I got a total over 15 population of: 8.446.1M x 1.145 = 9,712,000
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Toronto had 15.5% children under 15 in the 2021 census, so you get a CMA population of 6.928 million.

Hamilton was 15.9% under 15, so a population of 804,000.

Oshawa was a whopping 18.5% under 15, so a population of 431,000.

Total "GTHA" population: 8,164,000.

If you subtract the City of Hamilton and Grimsby (leaving only Burlington from the Hamilton CMA), which is the "tighter" GTA definition, you get about 7,550,000.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Toronto had 15.5% children under 15 in the 2021 census, so you get a CMA population of 6.928 million.

Hamilton was 15.9% under 15, so a population of 804,000.

Oshawa was a whopping 18.5% under 15, so a population of 431,000.

Total "GTHA" population: 8,164,000.

If you subtract the City of Hamilton and Grimsby (leaving only Burlington from the Hamilton CMA), which is the "tighter" GTA definition, you get about 7,550,000.
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Folks - please be careful with the Statistics Canada data, and look at the qualifying information. In some of the labour force data, the numbers are for ages 15 and over (for example Table 7 in the monthly LFS) while other data can (Table 8 for example) includes total population, the labour force subset, the numbers of employed, unemployed, and their associated percentage rates within that subset for Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

When making adjustments to gross up the numbers from a population subset group to total population please consider the qualifications (if any) StatsCan has placed on the source data.
 
I don't believe the Table 8 populations are total population. They don't have a qualifier saying it's 15+ only, but they show the same population number (5.996 million for the Toronto CMA).

The adjustments are obviously rough estimates. We need actual CMA population estimate data, of which July 2023 estimates are due out next month, and even that will just be Statistics Canada's best estimate until the 2026 census.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
don't believe the Table 8 populations are total population. They don't have a qualifier saying it's 15+ only, but they show the same population number (5.996 million for the Toronto CMA).

The adjustments are obviously rough estimates. We need actual CMA population estimate data, of which July 2023 estimates are due out next month, and even that will just be Statistics Canada's best estimate until the 2025 census.
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@insertnamehere - You are correct.

Turns out the Table 8 Population line data is 15+ only, not the total number of individuals in the CMA.

I called Statistics Canada, and was walked through to the source table for the data. The difference between the Population lines versus the Labour Force lines would be those not in the work force - be they retired, students, or otherwise not available for work. My apologies for the confusion.

And actually, for the reason I originally started tracking this data was as a proxy for the overall health of the Toronto economy, relative to those of Montreal and Vancouver - the fact that the year over year growth turns out to be not a full count of the changes in population, but a subset (albeit a big one), goes to further reinforce the amount of growth taking place in the GTA.
 
May 10: Updating here to continue the theme regarding population growth and it only being a matter of time for the next office tower.

From Table 8 of the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey released this morning, the one year (April 2023 to April 2024) Toronto CMA 15+ population segment increase was estimated to be 275,100, for a growth rate of 4.8% over that time period. The corresponding numbers for Montreal and Vancouver, in table format including Toronto, were:

City15+ Population
12 Month Growth		15+ Population
March 2024		Growth Rate
% Annual
Toronto275.16,048.84.8
Montreal118.73,841.43.2
Vancouver962,523.64.0

A side note - on a provincial basis, total net population growth in Ontario based on the Statistics Canada real time population clock data collected rate over a multi-day period is averaging 1,724 people per day - net. Again, a tabular summary of the current population counts and average daily growth numbers for Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta is:

ProvinceEstimated Population (May 10, 2024, Rounded to 100's)Daily Growth
Ontario16,068,1001,724
Quebec9,056,300644
Aberta4,877,100643
British Columbia5,662,100510

The Statistics Canada real time population clock can be found at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm

The growth shown by this data is inexorable - the next office tower in downtown Toronto is only a matter of when.
 
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