UBC’s billion-dollar trust fund baby

UBC’s billion-dollar trust fund baby

No university in the world has a trust fund setup like the University of British Columbia’s (UBC), according to Randy Zien.  And he would know. As chairman of the UBC Properties Trust, Zien oversees an organization that has managed more than $2 billion in development projects on UBC’s endowment lands over the last decade.

Business in Vancouver

Axa, Canadian pension funds may delay London tower

Axa is going to ask its co-investors that include Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte, Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board and British Columbia Investment Management Corp if they would like to delay construction of what would be the tallest tower in the City of London.

Bloomberg

The most ambitious new public building is a soccer stadium

Imagine hunks of Montreal greystone, fractured, scattered and then lifted into the air. Now imagine this mineral mass held up by a lattice of textured wooden trusses: a piece of the earth, resting on brawny woodwork, defining a grand shelter for the community. That is the scene at the new soccer stadium in the city’s St-Michel district.

Globe and Mail

Fortress reports significant progress on Barrie Collier Centre

Fortress Real Developments Inc. announced that the the Collier Centre and Lakeview Condominium project in Barrie, Ontario is now over 80% completed. Fortress also reports that 78 of 82 residential condominium units are sold, occupancy is to begin in January 2017, purchasers are finalizing condo finishes and the Bank of Montreal and Druxy’s will be commercial tenants.

Canada Newswire

Movie and TV studios put industrial property in focus

Movie and TV producers have seized 28.9% of all the industrial space leased in Metro Vancouver in the past year, often outbidding traditional tenants to become the dominant player in a tight market.  The unprecedented demand from the billion-dollar B.C. film industry, which has leased 1.5 million square feet since mid-2015 to a Canadian low.

Business in Vancouver

Port Moody hopes for development around new SkyTrain stations

The mayor of Port Moody hopes SkyTrain’s new Evergreen Line will bring new commercial real estate investments to the city’s two stations on the line, which starts service early next year. The $1.43-billion, 11-kilometre SkyTrain extension that will connect Coquitlam City Centre through Port Moody to Burnaby’s Lougheed Town Centre, about a 15-minute trip.

Vancouver Sun

Burnaby’s Riverbend whets Metro’s industrial real estate appetite

Metro Vancouver is home to Canada’s busiest port, but if Burrard Inlet is the industrial heart of the region then the riverfront lands of East Richmond, Burnaby and New Westminster are surely its soul. Oxford Properties Group acquired a 60-acre parcel in the area formerly home to the Norampac mill in 2011.

Business in Vancouver

Canada Line driving Richmond office development

Richmond’s downtown core was once saddled with double-digit office vacancies, but the Canada Line has focused developers on the area and reduced competition for traditional office space, which has created a healthier market.

Business in Vancouver

Regina approves land donation for Conexus office in Wascana Centre

The City of Regina has approved a controversial land transfer that will see a new Conexus Credit Union headquarters and office space built on Wascana Centre land. It’s contrary to the city’s policy of keeping its big office buildings downtown, but the deal has been described as too good an opportunity to pass up.

CBC

Tim Hortons plans full-service coffee shops in Great Britain

Tim Hortons is continuing its international expansion with plans to open its first full-service coffee shops in Great Britain. The company partnered with an investor to establish a master franchise joint venture company that will open the stores in England, Scotland and Wales.

Chronicle Herald – Canadian Press – Globe and Mail

Simons adds home décor category online

Simons, the veteran Quebec apparel retailer that has embarked on an ambitious expansion across Canada, is getting into an entirely new category online: furniture and home accessories such as rugs, lamps and wall art.  The retailer’s new “digital décor space” includes more than 100 items intended to complement the company’s in-store assortment of soft home goods.

Financial Post

Cloudscene: the World’s first directory of data centres

Australian Technology Entrepreneur Bevan Slattery today announced the launch of Cloudscene, the world’s most comprehensive connectivity reference point for colocation data centers, cloud service providers and interconnected fabrics with the directory now available to the public.

Canada Newswire

Nunavut hamlet seeks Chinese investors to build port

The Nunavut hamlet of Qikiqtarjuaq has been lobbying the federal and territorial governments for a deep water port for decades, but funding has never come. Now, with the Northwest Passage opening, they’re turning to international investors to build their dream port.

CBC

Vancouver architects design building to house rainforest in Dubai

Vancouver architects Brad McTavish and Clive Grout are behind a new bio-dome called the Green Planet that will open in Dubai on Sept. 1. Their firm, Grout McTavish Architects, also designed the Robson Square ice rink plaza and the YVR international terminal.

Vancouver Sun

Gordon Pape: Why REITs are losing momentum

After posting big gains in the first half of the year, real estate investment trusts (REITs) appear to be running out of steam. As of the close of trading on Aug. 29, the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index was down 3.8 per cent for the month, breaking a winning streak that began at the end of February.

Globe and Mail

Market Trends and Research

Canada’s GDP shrinks 1.6% in second quarter

The Canadian economy shrivelled in the second quarter to its worst performance in seven years, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. The federal agency said real gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 1.6 per cent in the three-month period, due in large part to the wildfires that destroyed parts of Fort McMurray.

Vancouver Sun

REOC Financial Reports

	REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their second-quarter 2016 results. Have we missed any?

Canadian REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Feds slam prison REITs again

A bad August just got worse for prison REITs The Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America. This Homeland Security Secretary Jeh C. Johnson announced it would be reviewing its use of detaining immigrants in private detention facilities. The U.S. Department of Justice recently phased out its use of private prisons by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

CoStar Group

Retail

Couche-Tard revenue slips on lower fuel prices, higher U.S. dollar

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ATD.B-T) saw revenue slip by more than 6 per cent in the first quarter on lower fuel average selling prices and a higher U.S. dollar, among other factors. The Laval, Que.-based convenience-store giant said on Tuesday that revenue in the quarter ended July 17, 2016 was $8.4-billion (U.S.), down $559.-million, compared with $8.98-billion in the year-earlier period.

Globe and Mail – Financial Post

Rona sale: A timeline of who knew what, when

The 2014 sale of Rona shares by Quebec’s investment arm has come back to haunt Premier Philippe Couillard’s government. Transport Minister Jacques Daoust was forced to quit last week and then apparently admit Friday that he didn’t tell the truth about what he knew about the sale.

Montreal Gazette

New Development

Northlands’ redevelopment plans find allies in nearby communities

Northlands can expect neighbourly support Wednesday at a public hearing to discuss its future. “We’re really happy that Northlands … is looking at how they can best integrate with a larger community structure,” said Tish Prouse, president of Eastwood Community League. Prouse said Northlands’ Vision 2020 proposal would help his neighbourhood.

Edmonton Journal – Edmonton Journal

Infrastructure

Oakville hospital P3 building complaints remediated

The P3 entity created to build and manage the new Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital has reached a settlement with the project owner, Halton Healthcare Services Corporation (HHS), over certain building quality issues, prompting HHS to withdraw a Monitoring Notice.

Daily Commercial News

Sustainability

State-of-the-art research centre slated for Hamilton

McMaster University is joining forces with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology to establish a state-of-the -art research centre at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton. To be known as the Fraunhofer Project Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing, the green facility will be housed in the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre.

Daily Commercial News

City of Vancouver exits the curbside recycling business

In about a month’s time, the City of Vancouver’s recycling collectors will pick up their final loads of paper products and containers, then hand their jobs over to Multi-Material B.C. The non-profit industry association will take responsibility for the work in an arrangement city staff say will save cash and leave the city looking cleaner than ever.

Vancouver Sun

Other

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