A Gatineau company plans to convert Telesat’s former headquarters in Gloucester to housing and build three additional highrises nearby in a project that will add at least 1,200 new residential units to Ottawa’s east end.
Devcore Group acquired the 230,000-square-foot office building at 1601 Telesat Ct. from a pair of institutional investors for $16.1 million in a deal that closed on April 15.
The four-storey campus-style building, which includes three towers connected by a central atrium, sits on a 10-acre parcel of land just south of Regional Road 174 near the Blair LRT station. The property is zoned for mixed-use highrises of up to 32 storeys.
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Devcore CEO Jean-Pierre Poulin says his firm plans to build three rental towers on the site at the maximum allowable height. The company is hoping to start construction on the project, which would include about 1,000 condo-style suites, in the next 18 to 24 months.
Meanwhile, Devcore is already working on plans to turn two or three floors in each of the existing office towers into loft-style studio apartments in the 400-square-foot range.
Poulin said the conversion will create about 200 units that will likely be a mix of short- and long-term rentals. The company plans to include all utilities and amenities such as WiFi in the rental price.
The project, which is now in the design phase, will also include flex office space and will be marketed at students, young professionals and “digital nomads” who move frequently from place to place, Poulin added.
“It’s going to be a fun place to live,” he said. “But if you want to work there, you could.”
Devcore expects to submit the paperwork for the conversion process to city hall within the next 60 days and aims to have the first suites ready for occupancy before the end of the year.
“There’s such a high demand for rentals,” Poulin said. “It’s not a complicated renovation, so hopefully we’ll be able to move fast.”
Sister company’s new HQ
The class-A office complex served as satellite equipment giant Telesat’s headquarters from its opening in 1988 until the company relocated to Elgin Street in 2018. The building is now vacant except for a 26,000-square-foot portion that Telesat continues to lease.
Poulin said between 20,000 and 30,000 square feet of ground-floor space will still be used for offices once the conversion is complete.
Part of the space will become the new headquarters of Devcore’s sister company, smart-building software firm 1Valet. The growing startup now has 75 employees, most of whom work remotely, and wants to “bring a lot of them back to the office,” Poulin explained.
He said Devcore is also looking at setting up a training and development centre for immigrants, similar to the one it operates in Cornwall.
“It’s a pretty spectacular tech building,” he said of Telesat Court, adding some of the residential units could serve as transitional housing for newcomers while they gain job skills.
It’s the second time this month a significant office complex that once housed an iconic Ottawa tech firm has changed hands.
Last week, Regional Group inked a deal to purchase the 183,000-square-foot Churchill Office Park on Carling Avenue. The eight-storey building just north of the Queensway is best-known for being the home of Corel during the graphics software pioneer’s heyday in the 1990s.
Both properties are on highly visible sites and include adjacent land that could eventually be used for residential development.
Telesat Court, which was put up for sale in August 2022, took longer to find a buyer – partly because it was a mostly empty building that cost millions of dollars a year to maintain “in an office market that’s not conducive to leasing,” said Michael Church, managing director of Avison Young’s Ottawa office, which helped broker the deal.
Another potential buyer was eyeing the property, he explained, but never got past the due-diligence stage. Devcore then came in with an offer, and the transaction was done about six weeks later.
“When it finally happened, it happened quickly,” Church said. “It’s hard to get stuff over the goal line. These guys (Devcore) are obviously reasonably well-funded, and they’ve got a plan.”
Still, the veteran broker said he’s seeing signs of renewed life in Ottawa’s commercial real estate market after a dismal 2023 in which the total value of all deals fell 53 per cent compared with the previous year.
“The good stuff is going to start to trade, and as interest rates (fall) a little bit, there will be more of it,” Church said. “I’m a lot more bullish than I was about a year ago.”
