Ottawa company hopes redesign can spark office return

One Ottawa office is hoping renovations can be the catalyst for a downtown revitalization. 

At Orangutech Inc., new office on Metcalfe Street, the Ottawa tech firm has left cubicles behind, opting instead for a large, open, communal space. 

"The whole office is physically designed for connection and collaboration in bigger groups. We’re asking people not to come in here and put their heads down and work as they would at home," Corey Bainerman, Director of People and Culture at Orangutech said. 

While still under construction, the newly designed space was made in collaboration with the company’s employees in an effort to transition from remote work to a hybrid setting focused on flexibility, and weekly in-person team meetings. 

"We’re not hoping people come in to do quiet work; we’re hoping they come in to connect, collaborate, create new ways of working together," Bainerman said. 

Commercial real estate experts say they’re far from the only company trying to revitalize their space in an effort to fill the gap left in offices and the downtown core, but the amount of empty spaces is alarming.  

"Downtown hasn’t recovered the way it has in the past. It’s still seeing a massive shortage of tenants and of people compared to pre-pandemic levels," Jared Jenicek, a commercial real estate agent with Real Strategy said. 

According to the latest National Market Snapshot, investment company Colliers took stock of office vacancy rates in 12 Canadian cities. According to the report, the vacancy rate is on average 13 per cent, up from eight per cent pre-pandemic. 

In Ottawa, in the third quarter, Colliers found a 10.6 per cent vacancy in the city. 

"In the past, the average is between two and five per cent," Jenicek said. 

Some Ottawa employees who work in similarly renovated spaces say the change has been an incentive to come back to the office more frequently. 

"We went last week, they remodelled it, it’s like a new Shangri-La. Everybody is just excited to go back again and work," Lassen Nallek, who works with the federal public service said. 

But even among its supporters, the transformations aren’t enough to convince employees a permanent return to the office is necessary. 

"A day, two days a week is still reasonable. I think, for what I do, I find we’re still more productive from home and more practical to keep the hybrid remote work," Nallek said.

Among the main concerns about the new spaces was a lack of isolation and ability to work in quiet. 

Others expressed concerns about commute times, separation from family and pets, and the potential loss of productivity. 

"There’s a certain generation that’s comfortable working in that kind of situation. Myself, in my field, I like to concentrate and get my work done and I need to have that sort of seclusion in order to produce,” Greg Tiakun, who works remotely, said. 

Despite concerns, Bainerman is hopeful the new space can be a model for others to follow and a potential catalyst for a larger return to the office down the road. 

“It’s an investment in the long-term, we really are confident people will come in, they’ll see the value and we’ll kind of grow the momentum that way,” he said.