Ex-ministry building gets fresh look
Daycare to be major tenant of refurbished downtown site at 722 Johnson St.
A local developer is breathing new life into a downtown Victoria office building, and intends to populate it with young lives.
Ian Laing and partner Tim Quocksister are in the midst of a $2-million renovation of 722 Johnson St., a former government ministry building, and intend to offer three storeys of the site to a corporate daycare company this fall.
Laing said the building will have a drastically new look, and a wildly new function, when it reopens in September.
“The building has been there a long time, and it’s a nice symmetrical building but you always seem to miss it on the street,” he said, noting the old design allowed it to blend into its surroundings.
Laing said he and Quocksister intend to make it stand out with a fresh, modern look outside, and they have gutted its five floors.
“When we’re done, it will look like a brand new building,” he said, noting the exterior siding, which is designed to never fade, and other exterior touches will cost $600,000 alone.
The renovation and tenant improvements are expected to be completed by the middle of September.
That’s when Willowbrae Academy intends to open its threestorey daycare centre.
The company, which launched its first academy in 2010 in Nova Scotia, has since expanded across the country. It expects to have 15 locations open by next spring, including a Langford location early next year and the downtown Victoria spot this fall.
A Willowbrae spokesperson could not be contacted Thursday for details about the plans for the Victoria location, but Laing said there are likely to be spots for 120 children.
Laing suggested there will be no shortage of customers for his anchor tenant.
“That building is surrounded by cranes right now, with 1515 Douglas coming up right now. And with the number of residential buildings around us, I think it will be pretty special for the city to have a corporate daycare there,” he said. “The daycare seemed to be a nice fit — as you add more people to the core, you need the services like that.”
Colliers International’s most recent retail and office real-estate report on the region said space is being snapped up, a trend expected to continue through this year and 2018.
The report says strong tourism numbers, a significant increase in the number of people living downtown and an increased high-tech presence have combined to create a more vibrant downtown.
The retail street-front vacancy rate had dropped by more than three percentage points to 5.45 per cent by the end of 2016 — the lowest rate since 2010.
The office market saw its vacancy rate drop below eight per cent by the end of 2016, the first time that’s happened in seven years.
On top of that, 5,775 people have moved into the city in the last six years, according to the City of Victoria.
Laing said apart from the daycare, there will be about 12,000 square feet of space available in the office building. The developers are in talks with a couple of tech firms about leasing that space on the main and second floors.
He said that he and Quocksister acquired the property for $5.085 million in August 2016.
Laing said they liked the idea of buying the building when they realized there was no way they could build that much square footage, with steel and concrete, for the price.
“We felt the market was good, commercial vacancy was going down in the core, and we had confidence we could renovate the space and attract tenants,” he said, noting the building has ample parking below ground and is connected to a city parkade.
As for the pace of downtown development, Laing’s sentiment is simple: Bring it on.
“The more the better,” he said. “You get the sense the city is really on the move. All these changes have been positive — more density, more people.
“I believed the more you put in the core that the commercial real estate would come back, and that has proven to be true,” he said. “Over the last few years, with more people living downtown, it’s been reflected in commercial vacancy rates. And I’m now more comfortable in long-term commercial and residential investing in the core.”