CPPIB, partners buy US$1.1B student housing portfolio

CPPIB, partners buy US$1.1B student housing portfolio

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), in a joint venture with The Scion Group and GIC, has bought a 22-property student housing portfolio, for approximately $1.1 billion US. The portfolio, comprised of about 13,666 beds at 20 U.S. universities in 18 states, represents a mix of recently developed class-A properties that also includes a selection of value-added assets.

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

Slate Office acquires Chicago office complex

Slate Office REIT (SOT-UN-T) announced it has agreed to acquire 20 South Clark Street, a 379,903-square-foot, 31-storey, downtown Chicago office complex for a price of US$85.6 million (US$225 per square foot). The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions. “We are excited to acquire a high-quality well-located asset in downtown Chicago that offers such attractive returns,” said REIT CEO Scott Antoniak. 

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

‘Positive story everywhere’ for top markets: Colliers

Colliers Canada has released a rosy forecast for the commercial real estate sector in 2018. “There doesn’t seem to be much negative on the horizon,” says Craig Hennigar, director of market intelligence for Canada at Colliers Canada in Vancouver. “Generally it’s a positive story everywhere.” It’s a sentiment that was also expressed a few weeks earlier, when CBRE’s Paul Morassutti provided an economic update at a strategy and leasing forum in Vancouver.

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

Good year in store for CRE in 2018: C and W

Demand for commercial real estate from domestic and international investors will remain robust through next year, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report on capitalization rates in 11 Canadian cities. While there may be constraints from what’s made available for sale, and rising interest rates could pose risks, fundamentals and momentum are both strong, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s Stuart Barron. He expects 2018 to be “another banner year”.

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

Edmonton destined to become health innovation hub

Move over oil and gas, the next economic driver for the Alberta economy will be innovative health technology, if a gaggle of experts in Edmonton gets its way. Players from the private and public health, economic and technology sectors make up what’s called Health City, a non-profit formed about a year and a half ago to support local talent and attract international investment.

CBC

Edmonton set to debate tricky west LRT options

City of Edmonton officials are finalizing plans for the west LRT line and struggling with how to avoid snarling traffic. One option could make a new “rathole” — sending north-south traffic under an LRT track at grade. Another fix — putting the track on stilts — could force officials to expropriate local businesses and create an unfriendly concrete monolith for an eight-block stretch of a commercial district.

Edmonton Journal

Vancouver CRE assessment values jump again

Vancouver Sun – Western Investor

Transit group aims to make ‘realistic’ decisions on Van. project priority

The new leader of the Lower Mainland’s mayors’ transit council says he believes the group will need to make some tough choices in the new year about which of the B.C. region’s three planned major projects should get priority. “They’ve got to look at what is a realistic strategy. I’ll have a very frank discussion about what’s doable,” said Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan. 

Globe and Mail

Tech migration driving ‘sea change’ in Ottawa office market

In a town where the federal government has been the dominant tenant in commercial real estate seemingly forever, Michael Church and his colleagues are starting to sense a subtle shift in the landscape. The managing director at Avison Young’s Ottawa office and a broker in the capital for three decades, Church is as tapped in to the local real estate community as anyone.

Ottawa Business Journal

Sidewalk Labs’ development raises privacy concerns

For a city striving to become a major technology centre, it was a prize catch: A Google corporate sibling would spend the coming year planning a futuristic metropolis in a derelict part of Toronto’s waterfront. When announcing Sidewalk Labs would create a city of tomorrow, PM Justin Trudeau promised the project would create “technologies that will help us build smarter, greener, more inclusive” communities.

Globe and Mail

Toronto arts hub fights for right to occupy condo space

The Toronto Media Arts Centre will make its case for an interim occupation of a downtown condo building in court on Jan. 17,  a court determined in late December. The Toronto Media Arts Centre wants to secure an interim lease within the condo near Queen St. W. and Dovercourt Rd. Since 2015, the centre has been locked in a fight with the City of Toronto to greenlight its agreement of purchase and sale of the 36,000-square-foot facility.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail

Land underrated as a source of wealth

When most people think of wealth in the modern economy, they tend to think of stocks and bonds. The word “capital” is often synonymous with corporate ownership. Land wealth, meanwhile, is often relegated to a footnote. Yes, people own houses, but vast fortunes are made in the stock market, while the fates of nations rise and fall with the bond market.

Bloomberg

Many retailers believe market reinventing itself

Despite fears Amazon (AMZN-Q) will siphon sales from traditional retailers until they are weakened to the point of irrelevance, there are signs of new store growth that have many retailers, landlords and industry analysts believing the market is not in the midst of a steady decline, but rather a creative reinvention. 

Financial Post – Canadian Grocer – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Amazon to buy Target in 2018: Tech analyst

Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN-Q) shake-up of the retail landscape may not be over, according to one well-known technology analyst.  The internet giant will acquire discounter Target Corp. (TGT-N), Loup Ventures co-founder Gene Munster wrote in a report highlighting eight predictions for the technology industry in 2018. Amazon made waves in retailing last year with its $13.7-billion US purchase of upscale grocer Whole Foods Market Inc.  

Bloomberg

Airbnb defeats U.S. lawsuit over unauthorized subleases

Airbnb Inc. defeated a lawsuit by Apartment Investment & Management Co., one of the largest residential landlords in the U.S., alleging the online home-sharing marketplace enables tenants to break their lease agreements through unauthorized sublets. A federal judge in Los Angeles agreed with Airbnb it’s insulated from the claims by the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that shields online service providers from liability for the content users post.

Bloomberg

Market Trends and Research

CoStar’s biggest news stories of 2017

Here are the stories CoStar News readers considered to be the most interesting and newsworthy in 2017: #1 Amazon Outgrows Seattle: Kicks Off Search for Second HQ City in North America – In dangling the prospect of investing billions of dollars in the community and adding 10s of thousands of high-paying jobs, online retail giant Amazon kicked off a mad scramble among jurisdictions in September.

Costar Group

Autonomous vehicles will reshape CRE: Transwestern

The dawn of autonomous vehicles is going to bring disruption with a capital “D” to industries around the world. Transwestern Commercial Services is trying to help participants in commercial real estate anticipate the big changes that autonomous driving is likely to bring to their realm, too. An expected decline in parking demands will be one of the big drivers.

Forbes

Real Estate Companies

Brookfield closes inaugural infrastructure debt fund

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (BAM-A-T) Tuesday announced it held the final close on the Brookfield Infrastructure Debt Fund with aggregate equity commitments of approximately US$885 million, exceeding its target of $700 million. BID is Brookfield’s first investment vehicle focused on infrastructure debt, targeting mezzanine debt investments in high-quality core infrastructure assets primarily in North America, as well as in South America, Australia, and Europe.

Globe Newswire

True Leaf buys B.C. site to build cannabis facility

True Leaf Medicine International Ltd. (MJ-CN) has exercised its option to purchase 40 acres that encompasses its facility in Lumby, B.C., through its wholly owned subsidiary True Leaf Medicine Inc. The option was exercised on Dec. 22, at a total cost of $3.3 million. True Leaf now has 30 days from that date to complete the purchase.

Marketwired

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Real Estate Investment Trusts

Four REITs to buy as CRE surges in Canada

Cominar REIT  (CUF-UN-T) owns and operates a real estate portfolio of more than 500 office, retail, and industrial buildings. RioCan REIT (REI-UN-T) is Toronto-based with a portfolio that includes shopping centres and mixed-use developments. True North Commercial REIT (TNT-UN-T) owns and seeks to acquire commercial real estate properties in Canada. H&R REIT (HR-UN-T) owns, operates, and develops commercial and residential properties in Canada and the U.S. 

Motley Fool

Retail

Medical marijuana sales surge at Aurora

The already-legal medical marijuana market is providing brisk business for Canadian cannabis companies as they await the end of prohibition on recreational pot later this year.  Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB-T), one of Canada’s largest licensed medical marijuana producers, said November 2017 had been a “record” month for sales at home and in Germany, where medical cannabis is also legal. 

Edmonton Journal – Bloomberg – Victoria Times Colonist – Edmonton Journal

Bitcoin has yet to gain traction with B.C. retailers

Bitcoin’s value soared approximately 20-fold in 2017 to more than US$18,000, but few people who own the cryptocurrency are using it as a currency. Most Metro Vancouver retailers and owners of service businesses that years ago accepted Bitcoin have either gone out of business or stopped accepting Bitcoin. Those who still accept the alternative payment method have not logged any transactions in more than a year.

Business In Vancouver

Custom suitmaker Indochino finds new digs tailor-made

Dean Handspiker, VP design for Indochino, is used to quick moves. When the Vancouver-based online custom menswear retailer opens a retail showroom, the design team usually takes possession of the space on a Monday and the store opens on a Thursday. So when the company relocated its headquarters from Railtown over Labour Day weekend, the customer service team was at its new desks on Monday.

BCBusiness

A tsunami of store closings is about to hit the U.S.

U.S. retailers are bracing for a fresh wave of store closings in 2018 that is expected to eclipse the rash of closings that rocked the industry last year. “Landlords are panicking,” said Larry Perkins, CEO/founder of SierraConstellation Partners. “The last year was pretty apocalyptic from a retail standpoint, and the macro issues haven’t changed. There will continue to be a high degree of bankruptcies and store closures.”

Business Insider – CNBC – CNBC

Renovation and Restoration

Neglected Toronto architectural centrepiece gets its due

Toronto has squandered much of its architectural heritage. Dozens of grand old buildings fell to the wrecker’s ball in the postwar rush to modernize and renew the city. So when a building gets a makeover, and a brilliant one at that, the only thing to do is stand up and cheer. Such is the new home for the University of Toronto’s architecture school.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Infrastructure

Ten government megaprojects that may cost even more in 2018

There is a distressing and predictable pattern to many government megaprojects. The future is never rosier for these schemes than when politicians and bureaucrats first hatch them. And then it’s all downhill. Costs soar, delays mount, and the promised economic benefits fizzle. Then one day, taxpayers wake up with a nasty and unexpected bill.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Technology

How tech expanded from Silicon Valley to Bubblegum Alley

San Luis Obispo has a reputation for being a sleepy town in central California known for its laid-back charm. But Rick Stollmeyer, the chief executive officer of MindBody, envisaged it as a bustling tech hub. Nestled along the coast about 370 kilometres south of San Francisco, San Luis Obispo is far from Silicon Valley. 

Globe and Mail

Other

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