Loblaws to open 30 new stores in annual expansion

Loblaws to open 30 new stores in annual expansion

Grocer Loblaw Companies Ltd. plans to spend $1.3 billion renovating 500 stores and opening 30 new ones this year, in an expansion plan that will include more fresh food offering at its Shoppers Drug Mart unit. The grocery giant has made similar expansion plans in each of the past two years.

CBC – Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Weston at the top of the food chain

The son also rises. In January, shortly after his 44th birthday, Galen G. Weston took over as CEO of George Weston Ltd. (WN-T), the public company that controls the biggest pieces of Canada’s second-largest family fortune. It was the final step in a decade-long succession plan that makes him the key decision-maker for a collection of businesses and brands. 

Globe and Mail

New deals bring Toronto Bay Park Centre to life

The first stage of the 2.9-million-square-foot downtown Toronto Bay Park Centre office complex that will house CIBC’s headquarters and a new GO bus terminal is set to break ground in June. “The overall project value is projected to be a little under $2 billion,” said Jonathan Pearce, Ivanhoé Cambridge’s senior vice-president of North American office leasing.

Property Biz Canada

Crown closes on ‘unique’ downtown TO property

Downtown West is one of Toronto’s hottest markets, a fact that has Crown Realty Partners celebrating the purchase this week of 111 Peter Street. The real estate investment and management firm purchased the 252,000-square-foot building along with partners from a pension fund owner, according to Emily Hanna, a Crown Realty partner.

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Lone Wolf moving U.S. HQ to Dallas

Cambridge, Ont.-based software firm is relocating its U.S. headquarters to downtown Dallas. Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies is an almost 30-year-old real estate software and technology company. Its U.S. office has been in Las Vegas, which will still operate. The company serves 10,000 real estate company clients throughout North American.

Dallas Morning News

Hot real estate market drying up gas stations

Gas stations — especially in big city downtown cores — are disappearing, their dwindling profit margins and the soaring value of the property they rest on making their continued existence untenable. Finding a pump in Toronto’s Bloor Street-Queen’s Quay corridor is getting ever more problematic. Only Montreal still clings to a convenient number of downtown gas stations.

Driving

Greybrook on land buying spree in the GTA

Over the past month, Greybrook Realty Partners has been on a buying spree of land suitable for housing to the east and north of Toronto. “It’s a function, in our view, of the land supply constraints in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area),” said Sasha Cucuz, Greybrook Securities‘ chief executive officer and Greybrook Capital partner.

Property Biz Canada

Developer has big dreams for small towns

The town of Crossfield – about 30 minutes north of Calgary – has long been an agricultural hub best known for its rolling prairie and Rocky mountain views. Vista Crossing by Dream (DRM-T), a developer with deep roots in both Calgary and Saskatchewan, marks a new departure for the town of about 3,500.

Property Biz Canada

REITs may look south as reality sets in

If Alex Avery, a real estate analyst at CIBC World Markets, has called the big picture right, the coming years won’t be more of the same for REIT issuers and investors. Avery — who just released the fourth and final report in his series on REITs — expects the new world to be characterized by “lower and decelerating growth.” 

Financial Post

What to do with Edmonton’s old buildings?

In many ways, the old Edmonton Remand Centre and the west-end campus of MacEwan University could not be more different. The former lock-up is a stark grey fortress with tiny windows. Meanwhile, the bright orange building has for decades been home to MacEwan’s fine arts and performing arts program, a building with big windows and many joyous memories.

Edmonton Journal – Edmonton Journal – Edmonton Journal

Vancouver’s Gastown enjoys retail renaissance

A spate of new retailers is coming to one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods, including international brands locating some of their first Canadian locations in the historic Gastown district known for its cobblestone streets and Victorian street lamps. H&M’s upscale fashion brand, COS, opened a 3,000-square-foot store at 18 Water Street last month.

Business In Vancouver

Grocers making headway against Walmart, Costco

Grocery stores could be making headway in their ongoing battle for food market share against Walmart and Costco in Canada, according to a new industry report. Although the two retail giants registered growth in Canada through most of 2016, their rate of growth in food sales slowed considerably from prior years, according to Kevin Grier Market Analysis and Consulting.

Financial Post

Victoria’s Chinatown still thriving, but culture shifting

The Chinatown Fan Tan Trading Company is one of a kind in Victoria, a store of brightly coloured, cramped chaos. A riot of merchandise — soaps, tea whisks, Chinese finger traps, wicker baskets, vintage Asian porcelain — clings to the banks of a narrow retail river that meanders from Fisgard Street to Fan Tan Alley.

Victoria Times Colonist

Starwood Capital to acquire Forestar Group

It appears Starwood Capital Group may be switching horses in its homebuilding investment business after community and mixed-use developer Forestar Group Inc. (FOR-N) agreed to be acquired by affiliates of Starwood Capital in a $605 million US deal. At year-end 2016, Forestar owned interests in 50 residential and mixed-use projects comprised of 4,600 acres in 10 states and 14 markets. 

CoStar Group

Central China sets aggressive sales target

Hong Kong-listed real estate developer Central China Real Estate says it will seek to triple its sales by 2019, an aggressive target that will challenge the abilities of senior management, including its new chief executive officer Yuan Xujun. China’s property market has enjoyed a boom in the past two years.

South China Morning Post

Featured Column

Saskatoon office trends you need to know

In spite of a forecast for a slight increase in the unemployment rate and decrease in housing starts in Saskatchewan, RBC Provincial 2017 Outlooks is predicting a growth in GDP of 1.8 per cent. 

The Saskatchewan Edge

Market Trends and Research

Future unclear for Dominion Public Building

For at least a few more years, the Dominion Public Building will continue to house federal government offices. But by 2021, the workers will be gone, moved to offices elsewhere in the GTA, and the building — sold for $275.1 million to private real estate company Larco Investments Ltd. in March — will begin its next chapter. 

CBC

Market for U.S. MOBs slows down amid uncertainty

Days after Republican legislators pulled the American Health Care Act (AHCA) from the House floor, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan signalled he will continue efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With the ACA standing in limbo, private investors are looking at the merits of selling off their medical office assets.

National Real Estate Investor

Real Estate Companies

Torode shows confidence in Calgary neighbourhoods

John Torode has great confidence in the Calgary neighbourhoods of Inglewood and Ramsay. He founded Torode Realty Advisors in 1973 and has since sold more than 100 investment properties and syndicated more than $600 million of commercial real estate for private investors over the past 10 years. His most recent projects were mixed-use developments.

Calgary Herald

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Pure Multi-Family appoints independent director

Pure Multi-Family REIT LP  (RUF.U-X) announced the appointment of Sherry D. Tryssenaar as an independent director to the Board of Directors, effective immediately. Tryssenaar is currently the Chief Financial Officer of Ten Peaks Coffee Company (TPK-T), and of Ten Peaks’ subsidiary, Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company.  

Marketwired

H&R completes unsecured debenture financing

H&R REIT (HR.UN-T) announced it completed its previously announced offering of an additional $150 million principal amount of 3.369 per cent Series N senior unsecured debentures due Jan. 30, 2024. H&R REIT had previously agreed to sell the Series N Debentures to a syndicate of underwriters. 

Canada Newswire

Give yourself a raise with SmartREIT

SmartREIT (SRU.UN-T) is a well-run shopping centre REIT that offers investors a whopping 5.2 per cent dividend yield. The company is anchored by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT-N), which is a huge driver of customers to Smart centres. The company currently owns more than $8.6 billion worth of assets and over 140 shopping centres across Canada.  

Motley Fool

Retail

Toys ‘R’ Us drops ball in potential banner year

Last year was a good one for the toy business: with the help of tiny collectibles such as Shopkins, slapstick games such as Pie Face and the merchandising juggernaut that is Star Wars, the industry saw a robust five per cent increase in sales. And yet, big-box behemoth Toys “R” Us struggled to cash in on kids’ playtime.

Winnipeg Free Press – Retail Dive

Whole Foods needs to solve major customer problem

Whole Foods Market (WFM-Q) has known for some time it is a business in need of course correction. But its imperative to do so may have gotten more urgent this week, after an activist investor and some affiliates urged it, in a regulatory filing, to explore dramatic moves to stage a turnaround, including possibly putting itself up for sale. 

Toronto Star

HMV’s landmark Yonge St. store signs off

Jeff Rey carried three DVDs in a blue basket with its signature pink HMV sticker, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Live Free and Die Hard and Legally Blonde. “I would walk here at least once a week . . . . I will miss it,” he said. On Good Friday, at 6 p.m. the doors to the HMV store at 333 Yonge St. closed for good.

Toronto Star

Japanese retailer UNIQLO to open in Vancouver

It’s official, UNIQLO is coming to Metro Vancouver. The Japanese retailer announced it plans to set up shop in a massive 20,630-square-foot space in Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby this fall. The new location will be the brand’s third Canadian outpost. Last year, UNIQLO opened stores in Toronto’s Eaton Centre and Yorkdale Shopping Centre. 

Vancouver Sun

Restaurants and Eateries

Cheesecake Factory coming to Canada

The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE-Q) is coming to Canada, but Robert Carter, an executive director at market research firm NPD group, isn’t sure if the popular U.S. chain is the right fit for Canadian tastes. Cheesecake Factory Inc. announced Wednesday it would open its first restaurant north of the border this fall, at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. 

Financial Post

Renovation and Restoration

Feds move ahead with overhaul of West Memorial Building

A massive, unoccupied government building in downtown Ottawa is getting a complete overhaul, with a tender now out for the project. The West Memorial Building on Wellington Street is seven storeys tall, with two basement levels and a floor area equivalent to 22 hockey rinks. It’s connected to the East Memorial Building by an arch across Lyon Street.

Metro

Human Resources

A developer for the next generation

By the time it was completed last year, The Pacific, a luxury condominium in San Francisco, had already begun getting buzz in real estate circles. Much of the buzz surrounding the project had to do with its developer, Trumark Urban, and the man behind one of the most active real estate firms in the country, Arden Hearing.

Forbes

Technology

Small businesses get smarter with artificial intelligence

Roy Pereira believes artificial intelligence is a fantastic technology for small business. Yet many don’t necessarily understand the ins and outs of AI technology. That’s not a problem, says the founder and CEO of Zoom.ai in Toronto, an AI-based digital personal assistant. “We’re using AI without telling small businesses they’re using AI,” he says.

Financial Post

The final frontier for online shopping: Fashion that fits

As more consumers embrace the convenience of online shopping for books, music, electronics and all manner of merchandise, one category is not growing as fast as the others: clothing. Fit is a massive challenge for e-commerce, and there’s a belief in the industry if the problem could be solved, the profits would roll in.

CBC

McDonald’s to start collecting U.S. dining data

McDonald’s (MCD-N) doesn’t know much about you. At least not yet. By year’s end, the world’s largest burger chain will roll out nationwide a mobile ordering system that will collect a wealth of data about the habits of customers — everything from what kind of burgers they prefer to how often they swing through the drive-thru. 

Toronto Star

Other

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