On behalf of the City of Toronto, CreateTO has finalized an agreement to sell the City-owned properties at 277 Victoria St. and 38 Dundas St. E. to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).
This sale follows Toronto City Council’s April 2022 direction to unlock the potential of City-owned office assets suitable for repurposing or redevelopment as part of the ModernTO Workplace Modernization program. This sale will generate funding that can be directed to the City’s city-building priorities, like new affordable housing, while also benefiting TMU and its long-term growth plans.
The building at 277 Victoria St., located northeast of Yonge-Dundas Square, is the current office of Toronto Public Health (TPH). TPH administrative offices will be relocated over the next 24 months to one of the City’s core civic centre hubs.
TPH also delivers several clinical services from the 277 Victoria St. location, including a dental clinic and The Works, which provides supervised consumption and harm reduction services and injectable opioid antagonist therapy (iOAT). CreateTO, in partnership with TPH leadership and their partners, will continue to support the relocation of these critical services over the next two years to ensure continuity of care and minimize the impact on residents and TPH clients.
The ModernTO program was created at the direction of Council in October 2019. The program is a first-of-its-kind city-building opportunity that is concurrently modernizing the City’s administrative spaces, reducing government spending and strategically using the City’s unlocked office assets.
ModernTO will reduce the City’s office footprint from 55 locations to approximately 15 by ending leases and creating office hubs within key civic buildings, including City Hall, Metro Hall and the Civic Centres in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke, among other initiatives.
The program is also unlocking eight high-value City-owned properties with the potential for repurposing or redevelopment, allowing the City to generate dollars that can be directed toward priority city-building opportunities like affordable housing.
More information about the ModernTO program is available online.
Quotes:
“Through the ModernTO program we are optimizing and modernizing the City of Toronto’s office space – this is the right and responsible thing to do. This transaction with Toronto Metropolitan University will help expand and revitalize the school’s campus. At the same time, the funds are put back into ModernTO to help support the delivery of affordable housing and other key city-building initiatives that are desperately needed.”
– Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie (Scarborough-Rouge Park)
“As the Chair of Board of Health, it is reassuring to know that the current City services on-site at 277 Victoria will continue to be available to the community until a suitable new home is identified. I look forward to working with City Staff to find a space with wrap-around services to support our residents better. I’m also excited to see how Toronto Metropolitan University will utilize the sites in its future expansion plans, helping to expand TMU’s presence in the city’s core.”
– Councillor Chris Moise (Toronto Centre), Chair of the Board of Health
“I’m extremely proud of the collaboration between CreateTO and our partners at Corporate Real Estate Management to complete this deal with Toronto Metropolitan University. Not only are we helping meet the objectives of the ModernTO program and generating investment capital by selling the two properties, TMU students and faculty will benefit from the acquisition long term. It’s great city-building all around and this is what CreateTO was formed to do.”
– Vic Gupta, CEO, CreateTO
CreateTO was formed in 2018 as the City of Toronto’s new real estate agency. The organization brings together stakeholders, partners and community members to ensure the best use of the City’s real estate assets for today and tomorrow. CreateTO manages the City’s $27 billion real estate portfolio, develops City buildings and lands for municipal purposes and delivers client focused real estate solutions – ensuring a balance of both community and economic benefits. For more information, visit CreateTO’s website.
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