Commercial Green Retrofits to attract new tenants -TORONTO

The Toronto-Dominion Centre is undergoing a makeover, but there's more to it than renovated foyers and a spruced-up outdoor courtyard.

The real story is behind the walls of the iconic black towers, where owner Cadillac Fairview Corp. is investing in systems that will help to reduce energy consumption and operating costs - and make the six-building office complex in downtown Toronto more attractive to tenants.

Cadillac Fairview is typical of Toronto landlords who are investing in green retrofits, hoping that upgrades to older buildings will make them more competitive in a market where the office vacancy rate is rising and millions of square feet of newly constructed, LEED-certified space will be delivered over the next several months.

There is more retrofitting going on in Toronto than in other parts of Canada because of the huge amount of older office space that will open up as tenants jump from these buildings into five new towers going up in the downtown core, says Robert Armstrong, managing director of leasing services for commercial property broker Avison Young in Toronto.

Tenants are working with tight budgets and they're looking everywhere for savings. "What they're asking for right now is how to reduce costs, whether it's getting into a building that is more efficient than the one they're in, or how to make the space they're occupying more efficient," Mr. Armstrong says.

While the economy has put the kibosh on new commercial construction, the retrofitting trend is taking hold.