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But the pandemic’s prolonged economic and workplace effects led to some businesses resorting to releasing their office spaces. Downtown’s office vacancy rate fell from 2.6% in late 2019 to 6.6% in late 2020, which is still considered low. The vacancy rate is forecast to push further upwards to 8.6% in 2021. Most of the new vacancies during this period were from smaller and older spaces.
New office projects were still pushed forward during the pandemic, with 3.8 million sq ft of office space under construction and an additional 2.6 million sq ft proposed. The first major projects from the office construction boom that began before the pandemic are scheduled for completion in 2022 and 2023, including Oxford’s The Stack at 1133 Melville Street and The Post (Amazon) at 349 West Georgia Street.
Dec252020, 3:35 pm
CF Pacific Centre's north atrium, with the fountain pool and green wall waterfall. (Zeidler Architecture/Barry Freeman)
Open and airy spaces are common features of contemporary mall design, but they are not exactly the traits that CF Pacific Centre is known to have today, like the grand indoor public areas of CF Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto and CF Rideau Centre in downtown Ottawa, or Place Montreal Trust, Complexe Les Ailes, and Montreal Eaton Centre in downtown Montreal.
In these cities, indoor public spaces are a necessary feature to ensure social life in the public realm and brick-and-mortar retail can survive during the harsh winters. To a certain extent, this is also very true for Metro Vancouver’s dreary wet climate.