Office managers compete with imagination to convince employees to return to the workplace. The real estate company Canderel will hire the equivalent of nice organizers (G.O.) from Club Med in order to make office life more pleasant.
The company launches the Okkto concept, whose name means eight in Greek.
“For employees to be convinced to return to the office, they must be able to justify their trip,” said Brett Miller, CEO of Canderel, in an interview. With Okkto, we will integrate the learning and networking aspects into the daily life of the office tower. Employees need to have more than their computer when they go to the office. »
What will Okkto include? The halls will be redone. Relaxation areas will be provided. A program of activities will be offered to the occupants. A concierge service will also be offered. In the largest buildings, conference rooms and a training room will be set up. The work required can be completed within three to six months.
“First, the concierge will greet the tenants,” says Miller. Then, he will manage all the activities offered by Okkto. For example, he will organize yoga, walking or reading clubs. In the Club Med concept, there are the G.O.s, the nice organizers; this is the concept we have for the concierge service. »
Canderel, which manages a 2.3 million square meter office portfolio across the country, has already begun rolling out the Okkto service in Edmonton. In Montreal, it is evaluating the possibility of offering it to the tenants of 1981 McGill College and 2000 McGill College, two properties belonging to Industrial Alliance.
In addition, the Canderel company plans to build a condo tower of around 200 apartments at 1445, rue de la Montagne, next to the Vogue hotel and near the Four Seasons.
“We just completed the zoning process,” Miller said during the same call. We are to be evaluated when we put the condos up for sale. »
This will be a rare residential project to emerge from the ground in the city center these days.
The promoter, who built the three condo towers of the Canadiens, near the Bell Centre, is leading a dozen residential projects across Canada. He’s starting to sound out the ground for acquisitions, adds his CEO.
To return to the land at 1445, rue de la Montagne, its buyer, the Carttera group, paid 48.5 million to obtain it in September 2020. The municipal role gave it a value of 11.1 million. The price paid amounts to $230 per buildable square foot, which is higher than the price of previous transactions carried out downtown.
Mainly active in the Toronto area, Carttera has collaborated on projects in the Bell Center area, in Griffintown and in Vaudreuil-Dorion.
Nothing is happening in the southern part of the Voyageur block, property of the City since 2018, denounces the official opposition to the city hall, while the City of Montreal has an urgent need for social housing.
From 2018 to 2021, only 176 social housing units were built in the borough of Ville-Marie out of a total production of 15,500 new housing units, underlines the official opposition.
“Despite the fact that the City has owned the lot for more than five years, that it has all the tools to enhance it, that it has had two feasibility studies carried out on the ground, one in 2019 and the other in 2020, there is still nothing that has been done, ”deplores Julien Hénault-Ratelle, of the Ensemble Montréal party, municipal councilor for Tétreaultville and official opposition spokesperson for economic development.
The opposition obtained the studies carried out by the firm Daoust Lestage following an access to information request. In the 2020 version, which has not had a follow-up so far, the architects planned 279 housing units (62 affordable housing units, 90 social housing units and 127 rental units) over 17 floors.
“We want a project to see the light of day as quickly as possible and which fits into the reality of the site in question; therefore, to make student housing, something that the two studies do not advocate,” says Mr. Hénault-Ratelle.
Citing data from the organization UTILE – Work Unit for the Implementation of Student Housing, the adviser estimates that 15,000 apartments will need affordable student housing in 10 years.
“As we committed to in November before the city council, we have taken the time to reassess the needs in the post-pandemic context in the last few months to come back with a project that is in line with the new needs of this sensitive sector. downtown,” retorted, in a written statement, Benoit Dorais, responsible for housing, real estate strategy and legal affairs on the executive committee of the City of Montreal.
“We are currently deploying an accelerated mandate with teams studying different scenarios. This year, we will present a proposal that meets the ambitions and needs of the sector,” promises the vice-president of the executive committee.
