If you've walked down the north side of Bloor Street between Avenue and Bay in the past couple of months and looked up, you will have noticed 101 Bloor West, a mid-size office tower with Cole Haan and Royal de Versailles as its ground-floor retail tenants, has been completely empty.
If you thought it was destined to be another condo conversion, you would have been right, for a few months. But after a New York developer decided the market had turned, it was sold to
Kingsett Capital, the company that owns 155 Cumberland across the street. According to leasing agent Michael Spence at
CBRE, Kingsett considered turning it into a condo briefly, but then decided "it's more of an office play," and turned to CBRE to lease it out.
Construction started this weekend, with a large crane blocking Bloor, preparing the building for the two new tenants, the Ministry of Youth and Child Services and the
Ontario College of Teachers, the latter of which is moving down from its current offices at 121 Bloor West.
According to Jeff Friedman, CBRE's lead on the deal, the papers were signed in June, and the tenants have recently taken possession.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: CBRE, Michael Spence