Globe and Mail to move HQ

The Globe and Mail will build a new headquarters in Toronto not far from their current Front Street West/Peter St. location. The Globe reports that the “building will likely be on Wellington Street” nearby.

Woodbridge Co. Ltd., the private holding company tasked with managing
the Thomson family’s assets, announced yesterday it will invest in a new
office for the newspaper.

The Thomson family (which owns a majority stake in Thomson Reuters Corp. and recently regained majority control in the Globe from CTVglobemedia) already owns about 80 per cent of the real estate on the block between Portland Street and Spadina Ave, the Globe reports.

“You can’t walk through the front door of this building any more and say, ‘This is what a modern media company looks like,’ ” Woodbridge CEO Geoff Beattie told the Globe.

The Globe has lived on Front Street since 1971, when it bought the building from the former Toronto Telegram. (When
the 95-year-old Telegram, a conservative afternoon broadsheet, folded
in ’71, most of the employees moved on to the newly-created Toronto Sun).

The fate of the current building has yet to be decided, but considering the explosion of condo developments in the area — following the loosening of zoning laws in 1996 — we might just see another skyline changer spring up.