Calgary’s north a strong draw for new communities

Calgary’s north a strong draw for new communities

For the unveiling of new master-planned communities, north Calgary captured the spotlight in 2016. Livingston by Brookfield Residential and Carrington by Genstar Development Co. are new neighbours of Centre Street North, while northeast Calgary’s Savanna in Saddle Ridge, also by Genstar, launched just off Metis Trail. The  busy quadrant also added 525-hectare community of Cornerstone by Walton Development.

Calgary Herald

Aritzia IPO dominates worst year in decades for Canadian IPOs

Vancouver fashion house Aritzia Inc. (ATZ-T) was by far the largest initial public offering (IPO) on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2016 in what was the worst year since 1996 for IPOs, according to a PwC. The $400 million Aritzia IPO in October was one of just three new issues on the TSX during the entire year and was one of only eight new issues on all exchanges in Canada during 2016.

Business in Vancouver – Toronto Star

Major changes in store for Vancouver retail

Metro Vancouver’s retail scene is expected to transform in 2017 with new malls launching construction and a slew of new retailers opening their first stores in the region. Headway will also likely be made in recasting high-profile retail streets. Rumours continue to swirl that the long-empty Granville 7 Cinemas space in the 800-block of Granville Street will soon be filled.

Business in Vancouver

5 new retail technologies coming to a store near you

Tomorrow’s retail stores want to take a page from their online rivals by embracing advanced technology — everything from helpful robots to interactive mirrors to shelves embedded with sensors. The goal: Use these real-world store features to lure shoppers back from the internet, and maybe even nudge them to spend more in the process.

Toronto Star

MEC targets city markets with expansion of urban lifestyle apparel

MEC hopes to open more stores in Ontario in 2017 as it seeks to conquer new markets in an increasingly urban nation, according to CEO David Labistour. MEC began life in 1971, helping outfit backpackers and climbers in Western Canada and has grown to 21 stores nationwide.

Toronto Star

Joyce-Collingwood rezoning sets area for transformation

Rezoning to allow a 30-storey tower next to East Vancouver’s Joyce-Collingwood SkyTrain station is set to accelerate redevelopment in the area. The December rezoning of properties by Vancouver city council follows the city’s approval in June of a new precinct plan that hiked density guidelines for the neighbourhood, particularly for sites close to the SkyTrain station.

Business in Vancouver

Regus has launched a new co-working brand

One of the largest providers of office space in the world is opening a new co-working building in Gastown that the company hopes will tap into the rising number of freelancers and start-ups in Metro Vancouver. Regus has leased the Ormidale Block at 151 West Hastings in Gastown and is now amid a full rebuild of the six-storey structure, retaining only the existing façade.

Vancouver Sun

Former newspaper building gets new life as coworking space

The historic Main Street building that was once home to the beloved Hudson Gazette weekly newspaper has begun a new chapter as a trendy coworking space for entrepreneurs, freelancers and work-from-home professionals. The Hudson Gazette abruptly ceased publishing in late 2014 after former owners Louise Craig and Jim Duff found the personal toll of the business to be too great.

Montreal Gazette

5 years later, Ottawa’s federal buildings get extreme makeovers

Ottawa has a reputation for inertia, for sober seventh thought. And though of late the city seems to be under perpetual construction, many of the projects are still years away from completion. So it comes as a mild surprise that, when looking back on an article we wrote in 2011 there have been, in just five years, what in Ottawa qualifies as dramatic change.

CBC

Calgary Flames say stand-alone fieldhouse would cost city $260M

The owners of the Calgary Flames are estimating the costs of a stand-alone fieldhouse will be substantially higher than the city has projected. The Flames organization wants to build an arena and stadium complex dubbed CalgaryNext, which would feature a fieldhouse, west of downtown.

CBC

Bigger things to come for Dartmouth’s Holiday Inn Harbourview

Dartmouth’s Holiday Inn Harbourview will get a long overdue $8-million facelift in the first half of 2017, thanks to its Mississauga-based owner and hotelier Sukhdev Toor. Toor, the head of Manga Hotels Inc., told the Chronicle Herald he is also rebranding the hotel at 101 Wyse Rd. to Double Tree Suites by Hilton.

The Chronicle Herald

SNC-Lavalin sells off French operations

Engineering and construction multi-national SNC-Lavalin (SNC-T) says it’s selling its activities in France and Monaco, including operation and maintenance of 19 regional airports. The operations, which employ about 1,100 people, are not sufficiently profitable, “despite restructuring and improvement efforts over the past few years,” head of infrastructure Ian Edwards said in a statement.

Montreal Gazette

Foreign investors remain bullish on US real estate

Reflecting a lack of suitable global alternatives and a proven track record of steady returns generated by US real estate, the latest annual survey of overseas investors by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) confirmed once again that the United States remains by far the world’s most popular destination for foreign real estate capital.

CoStar Group

2016 another banner year for U.S. Commercial Real Estate

For all its ups and downs, U.S. commercial real estate enjoyed another banner year in 2016, thanks in large part to the unprecedented run in multifamily rents and property values and the fact that the U.S. continues to be viewed as a ‘safe haven’ by global property investors. But it was also marked by continued distress in the retail property sector.

CoStar Group

Shoe companies race to move headquarters into Boston area

Shoe makers are racing to the Boston area as they compete for millennial talent. Reebok picked the city’s rapidly growing Seaport District for its new global headquarters in December, following in the footsteps of New Balance and Converse, both of which opened splashy new headquarters in 2015 that helped redefine the city skyline.

Globe and Mail

Featured Column

A new year christened by economic contradiction

Prices in Vancouver’s housing market have jumped by 40 per cent this year. The price of a typical single-family home has hit $1.5 million, about 20 times the annual median household income. Common sense dictates this would spark a boom in new housing starts to meet what must be overwhelming demand.

Read more

Getting back into gear in Alberta

The holiday season is usually an opportunity to reflect and rejoice. In recent months, there has been a lot of the former and too little of the latter for many Albertans. But as we look ahead, there are a number of reasons to be optimistic about the economic opportunities for the province in 2017.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Signs it’s time to move your office

There comes a time in every start-up’s life when you’ve outgrown your space. It could be because you’re hiring to explore new markets, ramp up sales or conquer technical challenges. Whatever the reason, you need to hire people. And, people need space to work from. But when is the right time to move? Having moved our company four times over the last decade, I speak from experience.

Globe and Mail

Residential sales integral to 2017’s CRE outlook

It is impossible to crowbar residential investors from the outlook for the commercial real estate sector in Metro Vancouver because it is condominium buyers who have been driving commercial land and property deals to new levels. This makes the current housing market a wild card for commercial real estate in 2017.

Business in Vancouver

Housing, oil lift Canadians’ economic hopes for 2017

Canada consumer optimism ended 2016 with a small weekly increase, finishing above where it started the year on rising expectations for the country’s growth prospects. The sluggish economy, hampered by disappointing exports was a focal point for policymakers in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first full year in power.

Bloomberg

2016 big year for Hamilton’s growing tech sector

A Mohawk College software development professor says 2016 was “the biggest year in history” for Hamilton’s young, emerging technology sector. Kevin Browne, who also runs a Software Hamilton, a blog and messaging/job board for local tech professionals, said the industry in Hamilton is “admittedly young.”

CBC

Retail

Sears CEO opens wallet again to keep retailer afloat

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD-Q) chief executive officer Eddie Lampert is opening his wallet once again to help keep the struggling retailer in business, a move that could help placate vendors after an uncertain holiday season. Lampert, a hedge fund manager and Sears’ biggest investor, will offer a $200-million (U.S.) letter of credit to the department-store chain through affiliates of his firm, ESL Investments Inc.

Toronto Star

Why Dominion’s signs vary from store to store

You may have never noticed it. But Dominion logos at stores across Newfoundland and Labrador are in disarray. Some, like the Dominion store in Stephenville, have the pointy end facing up, with the sign looking like an L. Others, like the Dominion at the old Memorial Stadium in St. John’s, orient the pointy end downward, making the sign look like a D.

CBC

Hayward and Warwick shop in Saint John to close

The 161-year history of Hayward and Warwick in Saint John has finally come to an end, according to owners Royden and Suzan McKillop. A sign posted Tuesday on the window of the iconic Princess Street china shop announced the shop would be selling off the remainder of its merchandise “effective immediately” because of a “sudden, serious” illness in the family.

CBC

	RENX top story picks for 2016
	The past year generated more real estate news than any year since RENX started publishing in 2001.  Instead of 5 top stories we selected ten and while we have confined our entire list to 100 stories in the past we let it run on this year. RENX top story picks for 2016

 

Restaurants and Eateries

Ottawa’s Fresco Bistro Italiano, The Guest Room closing in Ottawa

Elgin Street location, as well as its adjoining cocktail lounge The Guest Room, are both closing on Thursday. Fresco Bistro Italiano was established in 1991. Current owners Jim and Matt Bickford, brothers, took over the restaurant on Elgin Street between Waverly and Frank streets in 2005.

Ottawa Business Journal

McDonald’s opens controversial outlet near Vatican

Just last year, the mayor of Florence denied McDonald’s an application to open an outlet in the Tuscan capital’s historic centre – the magnificent Piazza del Duomo. The American fast food chain responded with a US$20-million lawsuit. Now, a McDonald’s franchise has opened within steps of St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Reuters reports. To the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, St. Peter’s Basilica is of utmost spiritual significance.

Calgary Herald

New Development

Pickering landowners in limbo over airport plans

When Michael Robertson moved to an idyllic patch of farmland in Pickering in the 1970s, he was looking for peace and quiet. He didn’t foresee an interminable battle with the federal government. It was 1972, and the federal government under Pierre Trudeau announced the purchase of 18,600 acres of Pickering farmland with the intention of building an airport. All properties covered by the purchase, including Mr. Robertson’s plot, would be expropriated.

Globe and Mail

‘We’re running out of land,’ Winnipeg councillor warns

One of the last parcels of city-owned industrial land is up for sale, raising questions about what Winnipeg will do when it no longer has any land to entice factories and other large employers to set up shop in the Manitoba capital. The city is looking for a private partner to purchase or develop 168 acres of unserviced industrial land near the Winnipeg Aqueduct, south of the St. Boniface Industrial Park and Water Business Park.

CBC

Ottawa condo revival a no-go for 2017: Experts

Although the city’s glut of unsold condos is easing and local realtors reported a sharp jump in November sales compared with a year earlier, Ottawa real estate experts don’t see a great condo comeback on the horizon in 2017. Claridge Homes vice-president Neil Malhotra says he’s hoping for a real estate rebound.

Ottawa Business Journal

Sports Venues

All eyes on Vancouver convention centre for NCAA event

When it comes to the city’s 2017 sports tourism outlook, all eyes will be on the Vancouver Convention Centre during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend. That’s when the venue will host an exhibition tournament of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 men’s and women’s basketball.

Business in Vancouver

Resorts

Banff hotel fire sparked by propane torch on roof, officials say

A fire that gutted the top floor of a historic hotel in Banff, Alta., last week was sparked by a propane torch on the roof, investigators have determined. The Dec. 29 fire at the Mount Royal Hotel on Banff Avenue forced the relocation of about 300 guests to other hotels in the middle of the night.

CBC

Infrastructure

Ottawa-Gatineau rail link likely a decade away

In a year-end interview with Radio-Canada, Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin said the biggest problem faced by the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) is poor transit connections with the Aylmer district.  This could be achieved through a proposal by Hull-Aylmer MP Greg Fergus for an LRT that extends Ottawa’s existing O-Train over the decommissioned Prince of Wales railway bridge.

Ottawa Business Journal

Heritage advocate calls for return to historic bridge-building style

A Fergus man is urging the Township of Centre Wellington to consider local history as it makes plans for a new bridge redevelopment project. The township plans to rebuild the aging St. David Street bridge in downtown Fergus beginning in 2018. In its place, Dave Beynon, a local writer and heritage advocate, said the township should build a bowstring bridge. 

CBC

Expropriation an option as city pushes forward on 17th Avenue transitway

The city says it may have to expropriate up to 43 properties on International Avenue to keep the new 17th Avenue transitway project on schedule. The roadway needs to be widened for transit lanes, bus stops and other improvements.

CBC

International

Blackstone breaks escrow on new non-traded REIT

Blackstone’s new non-traded REIT, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc., announced it had broken escrow after raising an initial $279 million in net proceeds for its continuous public offering. The REIT is offering $5 billion in shares of common stock in an ongoing offering.

CoStar Group

Other

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