How Crown Realty Has Breathed New Life Into 400 University

Crown Realty Partners has put 400 University through a $10M retrofit that’s earned the 1970s office tower LEED Gold. Crown itself just moved in, amid a sizable tenant shakeup at the former Zurich Building, and invited Bisnow for a tour.

Here are Crown managing partners Jamie Christie and Les Miller flanking new partners Scott Watson and Emily Hanna in the bar-style kitchen of its open-concept space on 400 University’s 19th floor. The company, which acquired the property in 2010, mounted the makeover after 45-year anchor Zurich Insurance vacated the top six floors (140k SF) last year. All the tower’s tinted and leaky single-pane windows were replaced with double-pane clear glass—as the building remained fully tenanted—and Crown renovated the lobby, installed new elevator cabs and upgraded washrooms.

The new digs are more light-filled, open-concept and collaborative than Crown's previous space at 175 Bloor St E, which Les says “didn’t give us full interaction.” The firm has leased 120k SF of 400 University’s 380k SF in the last year and a half. Indian IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services opened its Canadian HQ there, and HOK Architects moved its head office to the tower, too, “testament that this building can be funky and adaptive to creative tenants,” says Les. Olson Marketing also recently took space at 400 University (its refreshed lobby is below), and the Ontario government, a longtime tenant, has renewed its leases.

Crown's move to 400 University coincides with what Jamie describes a "natural progression" for management. Some original partners pulled back from day-to-day roles and have formed an exec committee to provide strategic guidance, and Les (a day-oner at Crown,  launched in 2001) and Jamie are managing partners. Meanwhile younger talent, like newly minted partners Scott and Emily, has been brought into the fold “to help fill out the future and give us different viewpoints and perspectives on the industry,” says Jamie. It’s also about succession planning, Les notes, and they’re looking to bring on more fresh blood.

The 400 University revamp comes as Crown completes one of Toronto's biggest office deals so far in 2015: for Trillium Executive Centre, a 465k SF portfolio on Cochrane Drive in Markham that it bought from B.C. Investment Management Corp for $126M. “It’s the single largest deal we’ve done,” Les notes. The only AAA office complex in that node, TEC presents a “great opportunity,” Jamie says, but just like 400 University, it's calling for a middle-age spruce up. “The bones are there, it just needs a bit of refreshing.”