Metro, Jean Coutu formalize $4.5-billion deal

Metro, Jean Coutu formalize $4.5-billion deal

Grocer Metro Inc. has formalized a deal to buy Jean Coutu Group (PJC) Inc. for $4.5 billion to become a Quebec-based drugstore and grocery giant, in a move that will help the two companies’ signature chains find efficiencies while using the in-store pharmacy business line as a buffer against the growing threat of e-commerce. The deal would see Jean Coutu shareholders receive $24.50 a share.  

Globe and Mail – CBC – Bloomberg – CBC

UPDATE: RioCan to sell 100 properties, valued at over $2B

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (REI.UN-T) is accelerating its major market strategy to focus on Canada’s six key cities, announcing Monday it will sell approximately 100 properties valued at over $2 billion. Ed Sonshine, CEO of Canada’s largest REIT, said most of the sales will be secondary market assets.

Property Biz Canada

Calgary’s TELUS Sky tower faces slow leasing market

The TELUS Sky tower in downtown Calgary is the last skyscraper under construction during the city’s most recent building cycle, but it faces a tough challenge to lease office space in an economy that is recovering slowly. The 60-storey, 750,000-square-foot project will have a retail floor, topped by 29 floors of office space and then a further 30 floors of residential rental units.

Property Biz Canada

Calgary’s University District lands first retail anchor

Save-On-Foods will be an anchor tenant for the retail portion of West Campus Development Trust’s massive Calgary University District development. The announcement of the 38,000 square foot store was made along with the release of new details about the retail portion of the mixed-use project. Further announcements for a hotel tenant and nine other retailers are pending.

Property Biz Canada – Calgary Herald

Musqueam FN launches 21-acre B.C. residential/retail project

The Musqueam Indian Band  has revealed plans for their returned land near UBC, amid towering fir trees that will form a three-acre “small Stanley Park” within the development. The 2,500-person residential development is on a 21.5-acre lot and will include four 18-storey condos, a 12-storey rental building and several four- to six-storey buildings and townhomes.

Vancouver Sun – CBC – Canada Newswire

OMERS buys Berlin’s Sony Center

Canadian pension fund OMERS and U.S. buyout group Madison are acquiring Berlin’s landmark property Sony Center from Korea’s national pension fund NPS for $1.62 billion Cdn, the companies said on Monday. The eight buildings at Berlin’s central square Potsdamer Platz include BahnTower, the headquarters of national railway company Deutsche Bahn, as well as office and retail space. 

Reuters

Expert panel envisions future of parking

Driverless cars, the sharing economy and online shopping spurred a discussion on parking issues at The Real Estate Strategy & Leasing Conference on Sept. 19. “Tenants are still asking for the things they’ve always asked for,” said moderator Natalie Vukovich, a partner at Daoust Vukovich LLP. “They insist that they (continue to provide) a ridiculous amount of parking . . . ”

Property Biz Canada

Vancouver hotel gives way to condo towers

The Cloud 9 revolving restaurant took its final spin atop the Empire Landmark Hotel Saturday night. The 42-storey, 357-room hotel is only 43 years old and still thriving, with over 90 per cent occupancy throughout the summer. But with downtown real estate prices soaring, the owners have decided to redevelop the block-long site at 1400 Robson with two condo towers.

Vancouver Sun – CBC

Sears Canada to close 10 more stores

The future of Sears Canada is in greater doubt after it announced Friday night it will close an additional 10 department stores, including the locations at Fairview Mall and Scarborough Town Centre in the coming months. The Sears stores at Lime Ridge Mall in Hamilton and Oakville Place will also be closed, along with six other Sears department stores across Canada.

Toronto Star – Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – Canada Newswire

Small, local retail key for Vancouver’s new ‘indie zone’

Vancouver’s newest neighbourhood-to-be is less attractive than a car impound lot at the moment. The land for the future Northeast False Creek urban village sits on either side of and underneath the city’s worn 50-year-old viaducts that were built to whisk commuters into and out of downtown without them having to descend to the grubby industrial land then underneath.

Globe and Mail – Westcoast News

B.C. retailers bear fruit in the Big Apple

It’s a sunny and warm late-summer Saturday morning and small groups of tourists linger in New York’s Financial District. They take photos of the New York Stock Exchange building and move away from Wall Street and down Broad Street, which is partly cordoned off to limit traffic. “It’s much quieter on weekends,” said Jamez Smith, who manages a new Indochino store that opened in July.

Business In Vancouver

Why some retailers are withstanding Amazon onslaught

Amazon.com Inc.’s purchase of Whole Foods Market Inc. pushed an already nervous retail sector into a collective panic not seen since the great recession. Old-guard retailers are furiously transforming their business models in an attempt to compete against the Seattle-based online giant, while analysts and investors are scouring quarterly sales figures, wondering if any retailers will be immune to Amazon’s corrosive impact.

Financial Post

Stricter building codes saved Florida’s CRE from Irma

A little over two weeks after Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida, it’s business as usual for commercial real estate brokers on the ground. “We had downed trees and inconvenient electrical outages, but other than some roof damage, it turned out to be pretty much a non-event on the commercial side,” says John Dunphy, senior vice-president in the Tampa office of  JLL.

National Real Estate Investor

Proposals unveiled to change downtown Detroit skyline

Quicken Loans founder, Cleveland Cavaliers owner and real estate investor Dan Gilbert recently announced details of his plans for a quartet of projects in downtown Detroit aimed at rebuilding the CBD of the Midwest’s second-largest city after Chicago. Bedrock, one of the ventures under Gilbert’s Rock Ventures LLC holding company, unveiled $2.1 billion in projects.

CoStar Group

U.S. CRE executives talk tough on Trump

Commercial real estate executives typically look for certainty in the marketplace, and some moves by the Trump administration have caused concern. At DLA Piper’s 14th Global Real Estate Summit in Chicago on Tuesday, an all-star group of politicos tackled these issues, including the possibility of increased racial strife in the US, before a packed ballroom in the Four Seasons Hotel.

GlobeSt.com

Market Trends and Research

Transit the backbone of emerging communities

Rivers and waterways were once the backbone of human settlement, but highways and rail lines have replaced them in an age of motor transport. While the Fraser River remains the dominating geographical feature of the Lower Mainland, with Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster and Richmond clustered around its southern arms, the growth is being made possible by investments in rapid transit.

Business In Vancouver

North American investors show pragmatism over Brexit

European real estate association INREV took advantage of its fifth North American conference, in New York City, to familiarise investors with the ins and outs of investing on the other side of the Atlantic. While geopolitical uncertainties were impossible to ignore, speakers focused on familiar themes to demystify overseas markets, in line with the meeting’s title, Europe on your Doorstep.

IPE Real Estate

Demand for light multi-tenant industrial on the rise

Approximately 40 per cent of all industrial space in the U.S. is multi-tenant and demand for this product type is continuing to rise. This rapid increase in demand has resulted in extremely high occupancy rates, and strong rent growth throughout the sector. In fact, more than 60 per cent of all new industrial leases this past year were for spaces smaller than 15,000 square feet.

National Real Estate Investor

With stores closing, why are property values still so high?

In January 2007, Apple leased the 16,000-square-foot, three-floor store at 21-25 West 34th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas at a rent of $6 million per year. Then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously visited the site and deemed the block unworthy of an Apple store.

Commercial Observer

Real Estate Companies

Gibbs Gage Architects adds new partners

Wade Gibbs and Doug Gage met in 1970 while studying architecture at the University of Manitoba. Today, their Calgary-based firm, Gibbs Gage Architects, is one of the largest in Western Canada, offering professional services in architecture, interior and urban design. With a staff count of more than 100 and 20,000 projects completed, there was a need to spread around responsibilities while preparing a succession plan.

Calgary Herald

Egyptian Resorts considers switching focus to RE

Egyptian Resorts Co. is considering refocusing its business on real estate as the nation’s tourism industry struggles to recover from years of terror attacks and political upheaval. A plan under discussion would see the company for the first time develop land beyond its Sahl Hasheesh project in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, beginning next year with small, high-end residential projects, CEO Wael El Hatow said.

Bloomberg

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Real Estate Investment Trusts

Three REITs with yields up to seven per cent

NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT (NWH.UN-T) has ownership interests in 144 healthcare-related properties that total approximately 9.7 million square feet of gross leasable area. Allied Properties REIT (AP.UN-T) owns and manages 156 urban office properties. Canadian REIT (REF.UN-T) has ownership interests in 204 retail, industrial, office, and development properties that total about 33.41 million square feet. 

Motley Fool

Moody closes National REITs merger

The merger of Moody National REIT II Inc. with Moody National REIT I Inc. has closed, REIT II announced. The merger of the two hotel REITs had reportedly been approved by more than 96 percent of REIT I’s stockholders. Both REITs were sponsored by Moody National REIT Sponsor LLC, an affiliate of Moody National Cos., of Houston.

CP Executive

Retail

Toys R Us secures $3.1 billion in financing facilities

Toys R Us Inc., which became one of the largest retailers in history to declare bankruptcy, announced it has secured $3.1 billion from a group of lenders to support its operations through the upcoming holiday shopping season. After the holidays are over, however, the retailer warned store closings would be forthcoming. 

CoStar Group

Renovation and Restoration

Winnipeg churches building for the future

Two Winnipeg churches are planning to redevelop their building or property in a bid to breathe new life into their struggling operations and enhance the community. East Kildonan’s Immanuel United Church is partnering with both SvN Architects + Planners and Discovery Homes to build a 21-unit townhouse-style condominium development on a surplus piece of land,

Winnipeg Free Press

Infrastructure

A subway station worth lingering in

Looking up from the subway platform of the new Highway 407 station, still under construction, multicoloured, tinted sunlight shimmers and reflects down toward the platform floor. The sight of filtered sunlight from on high, through the almost-ecclesiastical glass panels created by Toronto artist David Pearl, feels miraculous. Any glimpse of sunlight on a subway platform feels godsent.

Globe and Mail

Technology

Whole Foods’ customer payment information hacked

Whole Foods says the credit and debit card information of customers who bought meals or drinks at its in-store restaurants or bars were exposed to hackers. The grocer, which was recently acquired by Seattle-based online retailer Amazon.com Inc., says the data breach did not affect its main checkout registers nor any Amazon.com shoppers.

Globe and Mail

Other

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