Maison Hotel (Uptown Waterloo, Former Police Station) - Abandonded Proposal?

[urbd]

I did a quick search in the forums and could not find any mention or images of the Maison Hotel in Uptown Waterloo (sorry if it has been posted before!):
https://www.chamberlainipd.com/maison-ho...oo-ontario

This is probably the hotel that was talked about when the former police station was purchased by Ophelia Lazaridis years ago, before it was leased to Communitech. Hopefully we see something like this happen on this great site at some point!

[nms]

The arrival of the Delta Hotel in 2015 probably limited the appeal of another hotel targeting the same customer base within walking distance of each other. If I recall correctly, the Maison Hotel was announced before the Delta was announced. The Waterloo Hotel also closed within the last few years (ditto the Waterloo Inn and others in the Region). Maybe the hotel market has generally contracted?

I think that the Maison Hotel was also pitched in a era when Perimeter and CIGI were expecting to become hubs for large gatherings and conferences that would need hotels to house delegates. To my knowledge, most of those gatherings have not materialized. I know that conferences in most industries have contracted in general over the last decade. Covid has pushed a lot of people towards virtual conferences so it will be interesting to see if the conference circuit revives after Covid settles down.

[ac3r]

This project has been abandoned. It's too bad because the building looks decent, but yeah there is simply no market for it anymore. It's not even that Covid-19 impacted any demand for that - I mean, the world is going to return to normal and people are going to want to go to conferences to see talks/lectures/socialize/network - but there was no draw for such a large hotel in uptown Waterloo. This was mostly a result of tech companies moving in and speculators thinking there would be a market for this and that. Cambridge Mill was also recently approved which is a much larger project too and there are plenty of hotels around the city, so there is no demand for such a thing uptown.

[westwardloo]

Wow! That is a nice looking dead proposal. Of course this is an abandoned project though, it is uptown waterloo after all.  We got the suburban delta hotel down the street. I feel like this could be repurposed as a mixed use office tower with a small boutique hotel, but I am not sure there is anymore demand for office space then hotel space in uptown, specially due to covid. Unfortunately the city of waterloo decided they would rather have office parks with large parking lots at the university and out on the edge of town (Blackberry) then encourage large businesses to set up shop in uptown. (shopify is obviously an exception).

[CP42]

(shopify is obviously an exception).

And sadly, Shopify is on its way out.
It will be interesting to see who moves into the old Seagram building office - it is quite a unique space.

However, Faire took over their newer office space on Willis Way.

[Chris]

That proposal might be dead but we will be seeing something come forward soon as that building is currently for sale.

[westwardloo]

(shopify is obviously an exception).

And sadly, Shopify is on its way out.
It will be interesting to see who moves into the old Seagram building office - it is quite a unique space.

However, Faire took over their newer office space on Willis Way.

Yeah it is too bad shopify is moving to completely remote office space at least in the waterloo region. Personally I like working from home, but i also miss the office environment and the collaboration that comes with it. I will be a 2-3 days at the office kind of person once covid is over.  Only time will tell whether this is a good decision for businesses. I can't imagine trying to be onboarded into a company remotely and feel like part of a team.

[KingandWeber]

And sadly, Shopify is on its way out.
It will be interesting to see who moves into the old Seagram building office - it is quite a unique space.

However, Faire took over their newer office space on Willis Way.

Yeah it is too bad shopify is moving to completely remote office space at least in the waterloo region. Personally I like working from home, but i also miss the office environment and the collaboration that comes with it. I will be a 2-3 days at the office kind of person once covid is over.  Only time will tell whether this is a good decision for businesses. I can't imagine trying to be onboarded into a company remotely and feel like part of a team.

Is that confirmed? I had understood they were keeping the Seagram location.

[CP42]

I heard the Seagram location was being emptied in the past week or so.

[Chris]

Yeah it is too bad shopify is moving to completely remote office space at least in the waterloo region. Personally I like working from home, but i also miss the office environment and the collaboration that comes with it. I will be a 2-3 days at the office kind of person once covid is over.  Only time will tell whether this is a good decision for businesses. I can't imagine trying to be onboarded into a company remotely and feel like part of a team.

Is that confirmed? I had understood they were keeping the Seagram location.

FWIW. This line is in all the Shopify job posts on LinkedIn.

Shopify is now permanently remote and working towards a future that is digital by default.

[westwardloo]

Which essentially means although there are a lot of people who live in the region that still work for Shopify. Shopify has no presence in the region, future hires will probably be outsourced to cheaper tech/ labour markets. Its odd to think of the difference between Google and Shopify. Google is expanding offices and building something within the region. Where as in 10+ years people will forget Shopify even existed in waterloo. I am a little disappointed in shopify's decision to make 100% work from home there new corporate policy, the CEO/ Founder will definitely get his bonus for saving the company on lease expenses. I wish all the best to Shopify as it is a Canadian technology success story, I just don't know if corporate culture can be sustained and expand in a 100% work from home culture.

[tomh009]

Which essentially means although there are a lot of people who live in the region that still work for Shopify. Shopify has no presence in the region, future hires will probably be outsourced to cheaper tech/ labour markets. Its odd to think of the difference between Google and Shopify. Google is expanding offices and building something within the region. Where as in 10+ years people will forget Shopify even existed in waterloo. I am a little disappointed in shopify's decision to make 100% work from home there new corporate policy, the CEO/ Founder will definitely get his bonus for saving the company on lease expenses. I wish all the best to Shopify as it is a Canadian technology success story, I just don't know if corporate culture can be sustained and expand in a 100% work from home culture.

Quite. Shopify won't really be anywhere. In the long run all the employees will be ones who love working from home. And, yes, I expect that you are right that they will tend to be ones from less expensive areas.

Many current local employees that don't enjoy 100% virtual as much will likely migrate over time to other employers. And, as you say, Shopify will really start to fade away from the local tech scene.

[panamaniac]

I wonder how companies like Shopify will deal with things like career advancement? As a hopeless Boomer, I have trouble getting my mind around it.

[ac3r]

While Shopify will likely still continue to be a good business, they'll be likely forgotten here indeed. I mean, who remembers Kik anymore? It's only ever used by perverts and pedophiles who hang out in chatrooms. RIM/Blackberry is kind of a thing of the past too since their company more or less died in regards to the mobile market since Android and Apple crushed them and they failed to adapt to modern markets and technology. Few people think of Waterloo Region when they think of either of those companies.

In regards to tech...it'd be interesting if Microsoft started building a presence here. They could easily scoop up new grads coming out of Conestoga College and University of Waterloo. I've always found it odd that they didn't try getting in here.

[tomh009]

Blackberry does still have 4,000 employees (many of them local) and a $6B market cap -- just no hardware devices. And they are kind of out of sight at the far end of University Ave ...