Brookfield Property Partners is moving ahead with the third and final piece of its Bay Adelaide Centre after signing Scotiabank to a 15-year deal as anchor tenant. The 32-storey, 820,000-square-foot building will be the smallest component of the office complex, which opened its first phase in Toronto’s financial district in 2009.

The developer anticipates substantial completion of the $500-million Bay Adelaide tower project by early 2022. Soon after, Scotiabank will occupy 420,000 square feet or about 51 per cent of the building, which is set for the north side of the site with views south to a public plaza, and east to a popular infill park, incorporated in the campus footprint.

The building has been designed to achieve LEED platinum certification for core and shell. It will connect to the 52-storey west tower and 44-storey east tower, as well as to the downtown below-grade PATH pedestrian and retail network that provides direct access to Toronto subway stations.

“We are pleased to commence development of the north and final tower with highly respected financial institution, Scotiabank, as the lead tenant,” affirms Jan Sucharda, global president and chief operating officer for Brookfield Property Partners’ office division. “The north tower will complete the three-million-square-foot Bay Adelaide Centre campus, which over the last decade has established itself as one of the pre-eminent business addresses in Toronto’s financial core.”

Both the 1.2-million-square-foot west tower and million-square-foot east tower are 100 per cent leased — slightly surpassing the 99 per cent occupancy rate across Brookfield’s 11-million-square-foot Toronto office portfolio. The circa 2009 and 2015 Bay Adelaide towers are the newest of those properties, with west tower also holding the distinction of leading a wave of new development. At the time of its completion, it was the first new office building to come onto the market in Toronto’s financial district since the early 1990s.