OTTAWA — After nearly 20 years the ByWard Market News is moving from the street owner Michael Canivet named it after.

The shop, at 8 ByWard Market Square, sells magazines and, oddly, specializes in different makes and models of toy soldiers. It will move to a new location in Wellington West “where the rent is by far more affordable.”

“Since I started 20 years ago, (the rent) is more than double,” Canivet said.

When he first rented the 1,100-square foot shop, he paid nearly $3,500 a month in rent plus additional costs for utilities. Before deciding to move, he was paying closer to $7,000 a month. In his most recent lease, the rent increased by 27 per cent over last year’s.

But his move is just the latest in a general exodus from the market that worries the ByWard Market Business Improvement Area.

Executive director Jasna Jennings says that since 2000, commercial rents in the market have doubled, sometimes tripled. What a business could rent for around $36 per square foot now costs upwards of $75.

While the higher rents are pushing out smaller shops that can no longer afford to be a tenant there, they also guarantee that the one business that can afford to come into the market does, and in droves: restaurants.

“That’s the big concern,” Jennings said. “Everything’s turning into restaurants down here. Eventually, how many restaurants can one small, concentrated area really support?”

Currently there are more than 100 restaurants on four blocks.

A small, independent boutique might not be able to afford the same rent as a large eatery, but in the long run, the number of restaurants coming into the market means it’s less likely that they’ll one day, when their business life span is over, turn into a greeting card store or sell local cosmetics.

“Once one of these places turns into a restaurant use, it never ever reverts back to a retail use” Jennings said. “A small retailer, a little independent boutique owner cannot afford to go in and rip out all that infrastructure.

“Once we see that business use change, then it’s there for good.”

William Leishman owns Scooteretti, a manufacturer, importer and retailer of electric bicycles and scooters that has a showroom at 258 Dalhousie St.

While he says that even he wouldn’t be able to rent 10 to 15 stores down from his current location because of the “astronomical” rents on restaurant-filled Murray Street, he says the climbing costs mean a filtering of the type of business that can be in the ByWard Market.

“If you’re a type of business who’s very price sensitive, or doesn’t have a product that can support the rent, then obviously this is not the right area for you,” Leishman said.

“If you want to be in one of the areas that draws the most amount of traffic, you’re going to be paying the rent that goes along with it.”

He’d love to have the landlords be a little bit more reasonable, but Leishman said high rents have meant that the calibre of businesses in the area has improved, and that’s bringing people back into the market.

Jennings said there are many reasons that rents are increasing, including higher taxes, upped utility costs and even landlord greed.