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Vacancy rate eases

Andrea Markey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 28/05) - When the federal building opens its doors to almost 200 employees next month, the crunch on commercial properties will ease, said one real estate salesperson.

"We will be back to a healthy and balanced market after an overly tight market the last couple of years," said Jim Weller, a sales associate at Coldwell Banker.

Vacancy rates in Class "A" buildings is under two per cent and under five per cent for other buildings, he said.

"The space that opens will be reabsorbed very quickly," he said, adding he predicts no radical change, up or down, in the price of commercial space in the city.

Apart from the Waldron and Nunasi buildings, both opposite Boston Pizza, there has been a lack of new commercial construction recently, he said.

More than 150 employees and 14 government departments will relocate to the new building next month, with the first department, Human Resources Skill Development Canada, scheduled to move in first, said Anne Pratt, regional communications manager with Public Works and Government Services Canada.

The federal government is vacating 1,151 square metres of commercial space and maintaining 8,372 square metres, she said.

Twenty-five per cent of the tenants of Bellanca Developments Ltd.'s four office towers are federal. It is only losing one tenant, Industry Canada, to the new building, said property manager Darin Benoit.

The Nunasi building doesn't have federal tenants because it was built with Nunasi Corporation subsidiaries in mind, said Cathy Munroe, vice-president of finance and operations.

The move to the federal building will free up space initially in the city, but that will quickly fill up, she said.

Kelly Hayden, vice-president of Northern operations for WAM Development Group, is equally optimistic.

WAM owns the YK Centre, Panda Malls I and II and the TD Bank and Cunningham buildings.

"The space that does open will allow for existing companies to expand and new ones to move in," he said.