SmartREIT, Strathallen to acquire OneREIT in $1.1B deal

SmartREIT, Strathallen to acquire OneREIT in $1.1B deal

SmartREIT (SRU.UN-T) and a subsidiary of Strathallen Capital Corp., announced Friday morning they have agreements to acquire OneREIT (ONR.UN-T) and take the trust’s assets private. The transaction, valued at $1.1 billion, will be financed through cash and units of SmartREIT, the firms said in a release. It is the outcome of OneREIT’s strategic review process, which was first announced in June 2016. 

Property Biz Canada – Marketwired  – GlobeNewswire – Canada Newswire

Morguard acquires Markham office property

Morguard Corporation  (MRC-T) has purchased 123 Commerce Valley Drive East, an eight-storey class-A suburban office building in Markham. The acquisition was completed for a purchase price of $66.5 million, excluding taxes and transaction costs, and encompasses 203,500 square feet on 10.6 acres of land. “The property on Commerce Valley Drive is a premium acquisition for Morguard,” said Morguard CEO/chairman K. Rai Sahi. 

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

LCRE partners on Burnaby’s The Amazing Brentwood

Burnaby, B.C.’s The Amazing Brentwood, among the largest mixed-use projects underway in North America, has a new strategic development partner. Shape Properties and co-owner Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan have (HOOPP) brought on L Catterton Real Estate (LCRE), the real estate investment and development arm of L Catterton, the world’s largest consumer-focused private equity platform.

Property Biz Canada

Northview buys Moncton apartments, sells Iqaluit hotel

Northview Apartment REIT (NVU.UN-T) has bulked up its Atlantic Canada portfolio with the acquisition of six more properties in Moncton, N.B., the trust announced this week. It also announced the sale of a former hotel in Iqaluit, Nunavut.U. The residential portfolio includes 327 units and cost $31.4 million, or $96,000 per unit, according to information provided by Northview.

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

BTB REIT acquires Quebec retail property

BTB REIT (BTB.UN-T) announced the purchase of a retail building in St-Hubert on the south shore of Montréal. This $23.2-million transaction, excluding transaction fees, will bring to 72 the number of properties owned by the trust. This accretive acquisition is in line with BTB’s strategic review of selling its smaller properties while purchasing larger properties maximizing financial performance. 

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Winnipeg’s Grant Park retail proves a winner

Amanda Campbell has the kind of problems most real estate professionals can only dream of. The property manager at Primaris Management, which runs Winnipeg’s Grant Park Shopping Centre, is preparing to welcome a trio of new tenants that will push capacity to 100 per cent. Discount retailer Winners is the highest-profile tenant to sign on with a 22,000-square-foot location.

Western Investor

GTA residential land deals lead to record Q2 sales: Altus

The commercial real estate and land investment market in the Greater Toronto Area continues to boom, with 736 transactions valued at a record $6 billion during Q2 of 2017, according to a quarterly survey by Altus Group. Leading the way during the quarter were residential land transactions, with 25 per cent of the total transactions – including a record amount of “medium-density transactions.”

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Fortress’ Winnipeg complex set to rise in November

Construction is expected to get underway in November on a new $20-million parkade/retail complex on the former St. Regis Hotel property in downtown Winnipeg. Fortress Real Developments Inc. is partnering with Toronto-based Edenshaw Developments on both the St. Regis redevelopment project, which includes the hotel property and a surface parking lot, and the $200-million, 45-storey SkyCity Centre condominium/retail/office tower.

Winnipeg Free Press – Property Biz Canada

Massive changes coming to North, East Burnaby

One company investing big-time in the Burnaby neighbourhoods of Brentwood and Lougheed Town Centre is Shape Properties. This developer is in the process of building not one but two massive, transit-oriented, master-planned communities within just five SkyTrain stops of each other. Slightly closer to downtown Vancouver, the Brentwood master plan is already well underway.

Western Investor – Western Investor – Western Investor – Western Investor

New Vancouver office development to face challenges

While downtown Vancouver’s recent office development cycle, which will result in more than 2.1 million square feet of new space added to the core between 2015 and 2017, has been largely deemed a success, a number of new actors and trends in 2017 may offer challenges to the next wave of office development preparing to break ground.

Western Investor

New mortgage rules could hurt business: Home Capital CFO

Home Capital Group interim chief financial officer Bob Blowes said on Thursday he expected tougher new rules on mortgage lending proposed by Canada’s financial regulator to have a material impact on its business. Shares in Home Capital (HCG-T), Canada’s biggest non-bank lender, were down 4.2 percent to $13.19. The new so-called “B20” guidelines propose stricter checks on uninsured mortgages.

Reuters – Financial Post – Globe and Mail – BNN

	B.C. wildfires’ impact on real estate, residents
	The following section of the RENX newsletter is dedicated to news about the wildfires in British Columbia and their impact on real estate.

 

B.C. wildfire season worst since 1958

British Columbia is experiencing its most destructive wildfire season in 60 years. Kevin Skrepnek of the B.C. Wildfire Service says 4,910 square kilometres of forest, brush and grassland have been torched, making this year the second worst in recorded history in terms of land lost. During the 1958 season, wildfires engulfed more than 8,500 square kilometres. The current season is far from over.

CBC – Canadian Underwriter – Calgary Herald – Business In Vancouver

Theatres reeling as box-office attendance stagnates

Hope is fading for a feel-good ending at the box office. After several months of flops, movie studios and theatres are beginning to acknowledge their streak of record-setting ticket sales may be coming to an end. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., (AMC-N) the world’s biggest cinema chain, laid out a worse-than-projected outlook for the North American box office this week. 

Toronto Star

Sleek, stylish look elevates marijuana retail

Tokyo Smoke’s newly opened flagship store on Toronto’s Queen Street West offers the promise of heady times ahead. But at the moment, the sleek shop’s counter serves up nothing with more buzz than a double espresso. Curated cannabis will have to wait until next July, when retail sales of recreational marijuana become legal, says co-founder Alan Gertner.

Globe and Mail – Marketwired

American Green plans to turn desert town into pot paradise

American Green Inc., one of the largest U.S. cannabis companies, is buying the entire California desert town of Nipton. The 80 acres, which includes its Old West-style hotel, a handful of houses, an RV park and a coffee shop, is be to transformed into “an energy-independent, cannabis-friendly hospitality destination.”

Financial Post – Bloomberg – Business Insider – USA Today

Global office forecast: Is the world overbuilding?

Across the globe, an unprecedented office building boom is underway with more than 700 million square feet of space under construction that will deliver between 2017 and 2019, Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Office Forecast reports. That’s the equivalent of recreating five cities worth of office inventory — Washington DC, Dallas, London, Singapore and Shanghai — over the next three years.

Marketwired – CoStar Group

Featured Column

An argument for municipal controls on architecture

We as professionals in the commercial real estate industry can be known to talk out of both sides of our mouths. There is no question that almost every stage of real estate development has become more complex. I often hear frustrated comments due to the increase in resources and knowledge required to navigate red tape from what can be numerous applicable authorities who have jurisdiction over development.

Read more

Real Estate Companies

RICE Group buys Postmedia printing plant

Postmedia Network Inc. will sell its west-end Toronto printing plant to developer RICE Group for $30.5 million. Postmedia acquired the property as part of its $316-million deal to buy Sun Media’s English language publications from Quebecor Inc. in 2015. The transaction is expected to close on Aug. 30. Postmedia will lease back a portion of the property for up to 10 years.

Financial Post

Friday Harbour partners with Fengate Real Asset Investments

Friday Harbour Resort and Fengate Real Asset Investments announced a new and strategic partnership. Fengate, a leading real asset investment firm specializing in real estate, infrastructure and private equity investment strategies, will manage the investment on behalf of the Laborers’ International Union of North America’s (LiUNA) Central and Eastern Canada Pension Fund.

Canada Newswire

REOC Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Firm Capital American Realty Partners Corp, (FCA-X), Canada Newswire 

* First Capital Realty Inc., (FCR-T), Canada Newswire

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Allied Properties REIT, (AP.UN-T), Marketwired 

* Artis REIT, (AX.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* CREIT, (REF.UN-T), Marketwired  

* CT REIT, (CRT.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* Cominar REIT, (CUF.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* Granite REIT, (GRT.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* Melcor REIT, (MR.UN-T), Marketwired  

* Morguard REIT, (MRT.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* Slate Office REIT, (SOT.UN-T), Marketwired  

Real Estate Investment Trusts

CAPREIT soars high above its competition

Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAR.UN-T) currently trades at $33.08, has a market cap of $4.49 billion, and pays a 3.90 per cent dividend yield with an impressive and safe payout ratio of 34%. Relative to competitors Boardwalk REIT (BEI.UN-T) and Killam Apartment REIT (KMP.UN-T), CAPREIT  has favourable valuations: revenue is going in the right direction and the debt-to-equity ratio is modest. 

Motley Fool – Motley Fool – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

How to make the right choices when investing: Pape

Real estate investment trusts should be an integral part of every income investor’s portfolio. They offer steady income, relative safety, and tax advantages if held outside a registered plan. The question is, how should you hold them? There are three possibilities: build your own REIT portfolio, use mutual funds, or choose a REIT ETF. Let’s look at each:

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

U.S. REITs could be hurt by Amazon-Whole Foods deal

Ever since Amazon announced its $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods Market, professionals in the retail real estate industry have been buzzing about what the combo will mean for shopping centres. If retail REITs are hoping for a lift from the Amazon-Whole Foods marriage, they might be disappointed with the data former REIT analyst Shahzeb Zakaria has crunched.

National Real Estate Online

Retail

Activist willing to let HBC devise own RE plan

Activist investor Jonathan Litt, who is pushing for Hudson’s Bay Co (HBC-T) to boost its stock by generating more cash from its real-estate holdings, said he is open to letting the retailer come up with its own strategy to unlock value. Litt runs the hedge fund Land and Buildings Investment Management that has a 4.3 per cent stake in HBC. 

Reuters – Reuters

Latest financial results:

* Sleep Country Canada Holdings Inc., (ZZZ-T), Canada Newswire 

Restaurants and Eateries

Cara among companies hurt by bad weather

A rainier-than-usual year in parts of Canada is messing with more than just vacation plans — it’s also being blamed for putting a damper on profits. One company that’s been affected is Vaughan, Ont.-based Cara Operations Ltd., (CARA-T) which has more than half of its locations in rain-soaked Ontario, including patio-friendly brands like the Landing chain. 

Financial Post

Second Cup posts first rise in quarterly sales since 2015

Things may be perking up at Second Cup Ltd. (SCU-T) The coffee chain says during its second quarter ended July 1 it had a 0.7 per cent increase in same-store sales – a key retail metric measuring sales at locations open for at least a year. That marks its first positive quarter since the fourth quarter of 2015.

Globe and Mail – Canada Newswire

New Development

Residents protest proposed White Rock parkade

A long-planned parkade near the main drag of White Rock’s West Beach is on its way to becoming a reality, much to the chagrin of many neighbours and the relief of nearby businesses. The proposal is for a five-storey, 280-space parkade on a city-owned site comprised of four properties. The estimated cost is between $9 million and $13 million.

Vancouver Sun

Other

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