This past Wednesday the Globe & Mail newspaper announced that they signed a 15-year lease to be the lead tenant in a new office tower now under construction at 351 King Street East (just west of Parliament Street). This means that the newspaper will be leaving its current digs on the west side of downtown at Front & Spadina.

I have to admit that I was pretty excited when I read the news. The design looks incredibly promising and, as some of you might know, I’m bullish on the east side of downtown.

One of my favourite areas of the city is the Distillery District. But today it still feels very much like an island. And it’s because the city hasn’t really caught up to it. It’s a destination.

However, between the West Don Lands and major office projects such as this one (it’s 500,000 sf), I think the east side of downtown is about to hit its stride.

It’s continuing to “fill in” and this will make more and more people realize how central it actually is to the core - especially in comparison to west side neighbourhoods like Liberty Village.

Amongst my excitement, I did however stop to think about the fact that a newspaper company was taking top spot in a new office tower. Will newspapers even be around for another 15 years?