Regional Group has acquired a prominent suburban Ottawa office building.

Located at 1600 Carling Avenue, the eight-storey class A building is known as Churchill Office Park and spans 183,000 square feet. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The property formerly served as the headquarters for technology firm Corel.

Ottawa-based Regional Group acquired the property from Manulife Investment Management. The transaction closed on Thursday, according to the Ottawa Business Journal.

Regional Group made the significant acquisition while many Ottawa office properties are underperforming due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and hybrid work patterns, among other factors.

“For us, it’s very much in stream with the office assets we buy,” Sachin Anand, Regional Group’s senior director of acquisitions, told the OBJ on Friday. “We are believers in office (space) long-term; we are believers in high-quality space and anything along transit nodes. The visibility of that building, the iconic nature of it, is a sweetener, I think.”

The federal government has earmarked $1.1 billion for conversions of its surplus office properties over the next decade, and many of the redevelopments are expected to occur in Ottawa. Churchill has a 19% vacancy rate, but the building “will continue to operate as an office asset for the foreseeable future,” Anand told the OBJ.

The deal comes after Regional Group bought another class A Ottawa office building, the 224,00-square-foot Qualicum Centre, from Manulife in November 2022.