On July 22, Facebook Canada announced that it's set to become a tenant of MaRS's West Tower.
The move is scheduled to happen sometime in 2016, and, according to Tim Jackson, the vice president of corporate and community development at MaRS, the company has told the innovation hub that it plans to double its headcount in the near future.
After being completed in early 2014, the 20 storey West Tower stood nearly empty for several months. This led to a slew of bad press for the innovation hub, and a $309-million buyout from the provincial government. Since then, the fortunes of the building have started to reverse with
marquee names like San Francisco-based Airbnb and Toronto-based Figure 1 becoming tenants.
According to Jackson, with Facebook in tow the majority of the tower is now spoken for, and the challenge has become finding space for everyone.
"It's a bit like playing Tetris with all the tenants," he says.
"We're tying to fit everyone where we can, but effectively the building is fully spoken for with companies that have either a signed lease, are in the process of negotiating one or have expressed interest," he adds. "We’re very comfortable that we will have the building leased up by the timeline that was laid out to us by the province."
Jackson ends by saying that he and his colleagues at MaRS expect to have more exciting announcements about future tenants toward the end of the summer.