The technology industry’s share of downtown Toronto office leasing has increased from 10 per cent last year to 15 per cent this year, according to Avison Young, ranking it second to the financial services sector at 46 per cent.

“It's a validation of the strength of the local tech market we have here,” Avison Young principal and senior vice-president Carson Lambert told RENX. “As global occupiers look at their different markets they want to grow in, they peg Toronto as a hub to focus on.” 

According to CBRE’s Scoring Tech Talent 2025 report, Toronto is the third-ranked tech market in North America. There were 334,200 people with tech-related occupations in Toronto last year, up 14.7 per cent from 2021.

Among the biggest lease deals signed by tech-related companies in downtown Toronto this year, according to Avison Young, are:

• Lyft securing 90,000 square feet at First Canadian Place at 100 King St. W.;
• WeWork securing 67,000 square feet at TD North Tower at 77 King St. W. and taking an additional 16,500 square feet at One U at 1 University Ave. to support growth from its tech members;
• Salesforce renewing a lease for 150,000 square feet at WaterPark Place at 10 Bay St.;
• Element Fleet Management relocating and expanding its space with 74,000 square feet at 1 Adelaide St. E.;
• Softchoice relocating and taking 62,000 square feet at 1 Adelaide St. E.;
• Robinhood relocating and expanding its space with 60,000 square feet at 25 York St.;
• Nvidia securing 32,000 square feet at Portland Commons at 530 Front St. W.;
• and Clio relocating and expanding its space with 28,000 square feet at 25 York St.

Consolidating and relocating

Avison Young was involved with the Lyft deal, which will see several hundred employees of the ride-sharing firm and mobility taking occupancy of their new space in the second half of 2026. Toronto has become Lyft’s second North American tech hub after its San Francisco headquarters, but the company was previously using co-working space that it had outgrown.

“We've seen that be the case for several groups, where they’ve been accommodated in co-working facilities across the city and they've just outgrown those and need to have their own footprint,” Lambert explained. 

“So we've had that, we’ve had a few groups that have expanded their footprints, and then a few great stories of groups that have relocated — given that they need two, three or four times as much space.” 

The downtown Toronto office vacancy rate was 15.5 per cent in Q3, according to Avison Young, down 80 basis points from a year earlier. Vacancy in trophy-class assets fell to 3.5 per cent in the quarter from 7.6 per cent six months earlier, as tech companies and other major employers have joined the flight to quality to entice employees to be in the office more. 

“A lot of these tech groups were the first to be fully remote and allow very flexible work policies,” Lambert said. “I think we're seeing the pendulum swing back to the middle a little bit in the sense of they see value in being in the office — not to say five days a week, but definitely in some capacity.”

Tech company office priorities have changed

Lambert said the biggest priorities for tech clients seeking downtown Toronto office space this year have been access to quality assets and a location close to Union Station. That’s a change that’s come about since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We'd see a lot of these large tech users wouldn't go in the traditional bank towers near Union Station,” Lambert explained. “They wanted to be in areas that maybe reflected more of their brand, so areas of downtown east and downtown west in more creative-type hubs.”

But because there’s so little space available in trophy buildings in Toronto’s financial core, Lambert said downtown east and west have also seen a resurgence in office leasing activity. 

Lambert cited a large block of the 348,103 square feet of office space that Shopify pre-leased in The Well at 486 Front St. W., but elected not to use, finally being sub-leased. Downtown east leasing activity has picked up at EQ Bank Tower at 25 Ontario St. and The Globe and Mail Centre at 351 King St. E., he added.

“It's a continuous focus on high-quality, high-performing, well-amenitized buildings. That's definitely the common theme, and the common push from our clients is it's non-negotiable.”