Vancouver office space: ‘I’ve never seen demand as high’

Vancouver office space: ‘I’ve never seen demand as high’

Vancouver office leasing specialist Colin Scarlett recently received a rare request. “I got a phone call from somebody from San Francisco a week-and-a-half ago,” said the Colliers International executive vice-president. “A big-name company. They need 250,000 square feet (of office space) in Vancouver. I’ve only got that phone call once . . . I’ve been doing this for 22 years and I’ve never seen the demand as high as what it is today.”

Vancouver Sun – Property Biz Canada

Vancouver’s Exchange tower lands Amazon

Technology and co-working firms lead office tenant demand in Metro Vancouver, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) reports, driving 47 per cent of deals in the region and 50 per cent  of downtown office demand. Amazon is among the latest space-takers, according to NAI Commercial, claiming 98,560 square feet at 475 Howe Street alongside Mastercard Technologies Canada ULC with 40,000 square feet. The deals effectively complete leasing at the Exchange tower.

Business In Vancouver – Property Biz Canada

Suburban Ottawa office market regains favour with tenants

Sixty per cent of Ottawa’s office space exists outside the downtown core and it continues to experience very different fates depending on location, according to panelists at the recent Ottawa Real Estate Forum. Successes in areas such as tech-heavy, West-End Kanata were compared to a stagnant East End as panelists discussed the factors behind the trends.

Property Biz Canada

The People Space: New faces, new roles at Fiera, CF, Timbercreek …

Investment management company Fiera Capital Corporation (FSZ-T) has announced executive hirings in both Canada and Europe. Lucas Pontillo joined Fiera as executive vice-president and global chief financial officer effective Oct. 22. Pontillo takes over from John Valentini, who served as CFO the past three years. Valentini will focus on his role of president and chief executive officer of Fiera Private Alternative Investments.

Property Biz Canada

Globe Capital buys second Calgary apartment block

Globe Capital Management is not the largest apartment building owner and manager in the country, but with its second acquisition in Calgary in the last year, its name will start to spread a little farther west. The Winnipeg company owned by Richard Morantz now manages about 7,000 apartment suites in the three Prairie provinces, including more than 5,000 in around 70 buildings in Winnipeg. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Winnipeg Free Press

Calgary’s core calls out to distant tenants

For engineering and construction firm EPFC Corp., the move to Calgary’s downtown core was a win both financially and in terms of convenience. The firm moved this year into 48,000 square feet of Gulf Canada Square, a class-A tower in the heart of downtown, from a building in Calgary’s Beltline, south of the core. The company was growing and the sublease offered plenty of space all on one floor.

Globe and Mail

Office investment up in Calgary year-over-year

The office investment market in Calgary saw 29 office transactions equal to or greater than $1 million, totaling more than $602 million during the first nine months of 2018. During Q3, investment in the office asset class was supported primarily by two transactions: the purchases the Hexagon Calgary Campus by Novatel Inc. in August and IBM Corporate park by Spear Street Capital in September. Dollar volume was up by approximately $246 million year-over-year.

Barclay Street Real Estate Ltd. media release – Property Biz Canada

Longo’s to open first near net-zero supermarket

Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc. will open Canada’s first near net-zero supermarket on Nov. 1, with a helping hand from Natural Resources Canada‘s Energy Innovation Program. The federal government program contributed $1.44 million to the $11.06 million it’s taken to build the 40,000-square-foot supermarket in Stouffville, Ont., which will use 35 per cent less energy than similar stores and produce 65 per cent of its own energy through renewable technologies.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Property taxes drive Vancouver retailers to the wall

Earlier this year, Vancouver outdoor retail icon 3 Vets closed its doors and sold its building at 2200 Yukon Street after property taxes on the site rocketed to $90,000. This week Dulux Paints said it is closing its store at 2091 West Broadway after the property taxes increased 12 per cent to $209,000 from $187,000 between 2017 and 2018. The store was facing another eight per cent increase in 2019 for a total bill of $225,000.

Business In Vancouver

Canadian Tire back in the e-commerce home delivery game

Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. (CTC-T) is betting big on e-commerce – again. The iconic Toronto-based retailer has quietly launched home delivery for its e-commerce business across the country, this month rolling it out in its last wave of stores whose staff pick and pack orders for shipping them to customers. After abandoning e-commerce almost a decade ago, its approach this time involves integrating the digital and in-store experience.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Canada Newswire

International expansion key to Lululemon success

Vancouver-based yoga-wear giant Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU-Q) is stretching operations around the world and holding its position for continued growth in a rollout that is proving more successful than the company’s early global expansion attempts. In that original bid to expand, the company opened franchised stores in Australia in 2004 and Japan in 2005, but they struggled. Lululemon then bought out its franchisees and shuttered most overseas locations in 2008.

Business In Vancouver

Commercial mortgage spreads remain flat: CMLS Financial

Lenders and borrowers have maintained balanced supply and demand for the fifth straight month with commercial mortgage spreads staying flat. Five-year deals are pricing 145 bps to 160 bps over GOC bonds for top quality assets, while 10-year spreads are pricing at a 10 bps premium for similar risk. The liquidity premium of commercial mortgage spreads over BBBrated corporate bonds remained generally unchanged since the last report.

Globe Newswire

Halifax council to take closer look at stadium proposal

Halifax Regional Municipality is taking a closer look at a proposed 24,000-seat stadium, the pivotal component of a bid to land a Canadian Football League team for the East Coast’s largest city. But while council voted unanimously Tuesday afternoon for staff to conduct a thorough review of the business case, some councillors were uneasy about the financial burden and the environmental implications.

CBC – ConstructConnect – CBC

Unveiling Artscape’s latest creative hub

A condo building with room for creatives in the heart of the city is the promise of a new centre by non-profit group Artscape, which opened its doors last week. Artscape Daniels Launchpad occupies 30,000 square feet in a new office condominium building on Toronto’s central waterfront. It’s part of a larger complex being marketed as Daniels City of the Arts, which includes a pair of taller residential towers. 

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Toronto Star – Property Biz Canada

Ivanhoé Cambridge acquires French office building

Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has acquired an office building in Nanterre, France. The building, called HUB 247, is currently under construction with an expected completion date in early 2020. The project is located in Nanterre’s Cœur Université district and is being developed by Bouygues Immobilier. It will contain nearly 97,000 square feet of space. A purchase price was not disclosed.

Benefits Canada

Market Trends and Research

Bank of Canada to step up pace of rate rises

The Bank of Canada will raise interest rates three times next year, although a firm majority of economists in a snap Reuters poll said it would hold fire at its December meeting. Now that Canada’s trading arrangements with the United States and Mexico have been signed into a deal and a great uncertainty lifted, the BoC made clear at its October meeting the economy does not need more stimulus.

Reuters – Reuters

Construction projects by world’s megacities valued at $4.2T

A total of 6,645 planned and ongoing construction projects by the world’s megacities, valued at US$4.2trn and fueled by the increase in population, are sparking interest in residential and infrastructural developments. The United Nations predicts that, between 2016 and 2030, the percentage of the world’s population living in cities with at least a million inhabitants is likely to grow from 23% to 27%, and the number of megacities is projected to increase from 31 to 41.

Building Design & Construction

Real Estate Companies

WeWork takes full-building office lease in Manhattan

WeWork has leased 115,000 square feet, the entire office portion at 149 Madison Ave., the 12-story Midtown South building owned and being renovated by Columbia Property Trust (CXP-N). The lease is the third between the growing shared office provider and the office REIT in Manhattan. Columbia will collaborate with WeWork to transform the 102-year-old building into boutique office space, with modern amenities and infrastructure.

CP Executive

REOC Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Colliers International Group Inc., (CIGI-T), Globe Newswire

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* InterRent REIT, (IIP-UN-T), Stockhouse

* Morguard North American Residential REIT, (MRG-UN-T), Canada Newswire

* RioCan REIT, (REI-UN-T), Globe Newswire

* Slate Retail REIT, (SRT-UN-T), Business Wire

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Sears wrong kind of anchor for banks, REITs

Investors, it seems, have come to see only the softer side of Sears Holdings Corp.’s bankruptcy. However, there are signs the likely demise of one of the nation’s largest and oldest retailers could be a lot harder on CRE firms like banks and REITs, than markets are anticipating. Earlier this month, Bank OZK disappointed investors with an unexpected 20 per cent drop in its earnings.

Bloomberg

Retail

Dollarama announces private offering of $500M in notes

Dollarama Inc. (DOL-T) announced it has priced an offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of 3.55 per cent senior unsecured notes due Nov. 6, 2023. The offering is expected to close on or about November 5, 2018, subject to customary closing conditions. The notes will be issued at a price of $995.37 per $1,000.00 principal amount of Notes, for an effective yield of 3.652 per cent.

Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

American Apparel returning to Canada with online store

American Apparel will return to the Canadian market with an online store on Nov. 1., a year after its bankruptcy and closure. This time the brand will be Canadian-owned and, for now, won’t have any physical stores in the country, said American Apparel’s brand marketing director Sabina Weber, who indicated the company was taking a careful approach to its relaunch as it measured how its customers have changed.

CBC

Restaurants and Eateries

MTY enters into agreement to acquire Casa Grecque

MTY Food Group Inc. (MTY-T) announced today one of its wholly owned subsidiaries has signed an agreement to acquire most of the assets of Casa Grecque, a chain of bring-your-own-wine restaurants founded 38 years ago by brothers, Peter and Louis Berlemis. The Casa Grecque network currently has 31 franchised restaurants in operation, all of which are located in Quebec. The network generated more than $45 million in system sales in 2017.

Canada Newswire

Cannabis industry news

GTA condo boards grapple with cannabis rules

Cannabis is legal in Canada now, but that hasn’t stopped condominium boards across the GTA from continuing to try to ban residents from ever smoking up in the apartments they own or rent. Beginning in the months before legalization on Oct. 17, there were dozens of reports of condo companies and rental managers across the country passing new rules against smoking inside private homes in multi-residential buildings.

Globe and Mail

New Development

Construction cranes going up at Colwood Corners project

After a year of cleanup and preparation, building is about to start at Colwood Corners, a site that since 2013 has been little more than a hole in the ground at 1913 Sooke Rd. Vancouver-based Onni Group erected a crane Tuesday afternoon at the site in preparation for construction on the first phase of what will be a massive mixed-use community on 12.5 acres.

Victoria Times Colonist

Robohub opens at University of Waterloo

A new engineering building complete with a start-of-the-art robotics research hub has opened on the University of Waterloo campus. Students have been using Engineering 7 since the start of the semester in September, but the school held an official grand opening on Monday. The seven-storey, 240,000-square-foot building is home to classrooms, labs, 3D printing facilities, the Engineering Ideas Clinic and the Robohub.

CBC

MP Boston begins construction on $1.4B mixed-use tower

MP Boston has begun construction on the Winthrop Center, a $1.4 billion development in downtown Boston that will feature 750,000 square feet of office space, plus 420 residential units, retail, dining and commercial space. The project, which will also include a curated public gathering space, is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022.

CP Executive

Renovation and Restoration

Winnipeg building blasted into the 21st century

High-powered blasts of ice pellets are helping to transform a 114-year-old industrial building into 21st-century space in Winnipeg’s historic Exchange District. The desire to open up his own retail outlet convinced Jim Slater to finish up the renovation of the Exchange District building he owns in downtown Winnipeg. The owner of K9 Storm bought 168 Bannatyne Ave. a decade ago.

Western Investor

Other