Yellowknife, N.W.T. - Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny said the new Gallery building for Yellowknife is going to mean more bad news than good for the city's office rental market.

His concern is the amount of empty office space it's going to create thanks to the uncertainty involving diamond mining transitions and the Mackenzie Gas Project being put on hold.

Dolynny said with the building sitting empty for a long time, it's going to create a huge slump in the rental market, as well as causing investors to shy away from the territory.

"By pushing the market place vacancy rates above the safe areas of 4 to 5 % we could in essence be sending the wrong message to our institutional capital markets that have been investing in the North which could further trigger a loss of confidence in our community and erase decades of progress," he said.

Public works minister Glen Abernethy said the trend has shown that there is a need for office space in the city, citing the Greenstone Building on Franklin Avenue as an example.

He said it's at zero capacity right now even as people said there would be problems with too much space to begin with once it was built.

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