Torontonians are reacting to Mayor Olivia Chow meeting with business leaders to bring more workers back to the downtown core and reignite the economy after the pandemic.
According to The Star, Chow has been in talks with the big banks in the Financial District since last fall in an effort to bring employees back into the office at least four days a week, adding that she’s concerned about Toronto becoming “a ghost town.”
“Since becoming Mayor, I’ve met with business leaders to discuss city priorities, especially building more affordable housing. They have shared their views on a range of issues, including the return to in-office work,” she tweeted Tuesday evening.
“While I share their desire for a downtown recovery, when it comes to returning to in-office work, it’s up to employers and workers to determine what’s best,” she continued.
Banks represent a significant portion of industries in the Financial District, occupying more than seven million square feet of office space out of a total 34 million, The Star reported according to information from commercial real estate firm CBRE.
However, Toronto’s downtown office vacancy rate was 17.4 per cent at the end of Q1, a report by commercial real estate and investment services firm CBRE found, the same as the previous quarter. According to CBRE, the rise in Toronto’s empty office space is due largely to an increase in supply.
“The city saw 624,550 sq. ft. of new office space delivered in Q4 alone. The 1.1 million of new office space constructed in 2023 contributed to the most negative net absorption Toronto has seen in a year since 2020,” the real estate services and investment provider said.
But filling Toronto’s empty offices is likely the precursor to solving the problem of shops, restaurants and other enterprises scrambling to recover from the pandemic after remote working became the norm.
Though bringing people back into the office will help to fill vacant offices and renew the demand for local shops and services in the downtown core, returning to the office poses a frustrating set of challenges for a workforce accustomed to working from home.
Some people online say going into the office is time consuming and will constrain workers to fundamentally unreliable transit, or perpetually congested roads.
According to a recent report by Geotab ITS, a vehicle insights company, travel times on the Gardiner have increased up to 250 per cent in the morning rush hour and 230 per cent in the afternoon rush hour.
“Maybe if transit was improved so it doesn’t take someone two hours to commute in a sardine can of a train/subway, more people would be willing to commute,” one person wrote on Reddit.
“Forcing workers to go back to the office won’t be easy now that working from home is something many office workers are used to, and often expect from their job,” another Reddit user said.
Other’s called Chow’s actions misguided, questioning why she is only deliberating with business leaders and not affected members of the workforce.
“Why is the mayor doing this? Meeting corporate executives to ”discuss” with them ways to decrease the quality of life of their employees, her constituents. It’s insane. Transit is a complete sh*tshow, multiple delays all day every day. Traffic is unbearable. Just stop,” one redditor said.
“They don’t care about your welfare. They care about emptying your pockets into local restaurants, vendors, and TTC fare gates. You are just a walking wallet to be milked,” someone else wrote.
However, others were not opposed to the notion of workers returning to the office.
“It’s not misguided. Toronto depends on office workers. Without them, the city loses a lot of revenue,” one person said.
Now Toronto reached out to Mayor Chow’s office but did not receive a response in time for publication.
