News Culture Recruitment Relocation
EQ Bank moves to downtown Toronto, cites ease of recruitment as key reason

Equitable Bank is moving its offices from midtown Toronto to the downtown core in a move it says will make it easier to recruit workers.

Jody Sperling, EQ Bank’s senior vice-president of human resources, said moving into a state-of-the-art facility will foster an environment where employees can collaborate and challenge one another.

“Closer proximity to the downtown core, with convenient access to Union Station, means we can continue to recruit the best of the best with the skills needed to thrive at Canada’s leading digital bank,” said Sperling.

The new office is located at 25 Ontario Street, a new building owned by First Gulf Corporation and the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan. EQ Bank will occupy more than 175,000 square feet across eight floors.

Office under construction

The new tower — which was being marketed as The Shift — will be renamed the EQ Bank Tower. It is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2022.

As part of the move to the Downtown East core, Equitable said it looks forward to supporting the City of Toronto’s Imagination, Manufacturing, Innovation and Technology (IMIT) business incentive program to promote local employment.

“Our current location has served us well these past few decades but we’ve taken it as far as we can,” said Andrew Moor, president and CEO of Equitable Bank.

“The move of our headquarters from midtown Toronto to the developing Downtown East district allows us to leverage new building designs with larger floorplates to accommodate our growing workforce, while keeping the Toronto team together in one space. We considered a number of options, including those in the heart of the downtown financial core, but we’ve never seen ourselves as a traditional bank, and we believe this building is the most cost-effective path to achieving our long-term goals.”

Opportunity to design, shape workspaces

By moving to a new building that’s being built from the ground up, Equitable will benefit from the opportunity to design and shape the vision of interior workspaces and employee environments across its eight floors, which will allow the bank to increase efficiency and maximize opportunities for collaboration and workflow across the organization.

Terms of the lease agreement have not been disclosed.