It would be interesting if we could get hard stats on the current occupancy of downtown Victoria commercial office space.
My little 3 story office building accommodated 13 different tenants, with 4 of those being retail, and 9 being office space.
From April to now, in my building alone, the landlord (and the COV for taxes, local business for lunch eats, parking, etc) has lost 2 of the retail leases, and 4 of the office tenants.
So essentially half the building spaces now are vacant, with very little (or no) expectation that they will be re-occupied anytime soon.
Based on what I saw over the months and years walking around the building, that's a permanent loss to downtown of between 28-35 workers-shoppers-parkers-lunch customers, etc.
And that's just in my singular, small, three story retail/office mix building - one of hundreds of similar spaces in the downtown core.
You can easily see the loss of retail (eg. empty storefronts), but the story of permanently vacated office space, and the permanent loss of those workers in the downtown core is one that I believe is yet to be told in the COV.
I no longer think "devastated" is an overstatement when describing the current state, and future outlook for the downtown core.
Many will posit that it will all be fine in a couple or a few years, and things downtown will balance back out ... but I'm not sure I believe such optimism any longer.
The entire concept of "going downtown" will be forever altered post COVID, and technology, along with peoples expectations of how businesses are run (including where they're located, or if they're physical or virtual) will focus far more strongly on the remote/online methodology of conducting business.
I expect food and beverage will survive to some degree, simply based on human nature and the inherent need to socialize ... but outside of food and beverage, i don't see much in the downtown core to be positive about ... and I'm down there every day, day in and day out - and have 40 solid years of working downtown "memories" to inform my comments above.
All of the above to reflect on the fact that we may not even need a ferry, or to further worry about commuting, as the region develops on the Westshore while Victoria languishes in the same way that many North American "downtowns" shrivel up and die, while the "new" outlying areas take over as the place people consider when they think of business, food and beverage, shopping, etc.
Edited by Spy Black, 04 October 2020 - 07:06 AM.