Tricon sells 14-property Lifestyle Communities portfolio

Tricon sells 14-property Lifestyle Communities portfolio

Tricon Capital Group Inc. (TCN-T) continues to “simplify” its holdings, announcing Monday an agreement to sell the 14 manufactured housing communities in its Tricon Lifestyle Communities portfolio. Tricon did not identify the purchaser. Financial details were not immediately released. “The sale of our TLC manufactured housing communities portfolio represents the next meaningful step along our stated plan to simplify Tricon’s business,” president/CEO Gary Berman said in a release.

Property Biz Canada

Questions still surround Montreal Metro extension

The proposal to extend the Montreal Metro’s Blue line has been kicking around for decades. But persistent delays, broken promises and the blame game has left many Montrealers skeptical it will ever see the light of day. This afternoon, Quebec is finally expected to give the project the green light. The plan gained renewed momentum last month when it was included as part of the Quebec provincial budget.

CBC – MTL Blog – CBC

Arlington Street buys 42 buildings for new Calgary high street

Frank Lonardelli has closely tracked the evolution of 17th Avenue S.W. in Calgary into one of the city’s busiest roadways and the founder of Arlington Street Investments is now poised to take advantage by helping build the area into a “high street.” Lonardelli, founder and CEO, says Arlington has over recent years purchased 42 buildings along 17th Avenue between 4th Street and 14th Street.

Property Biz Canada

Industrial Lifestyle Properties REIT to specialize in cannabis

A Calgary investment firm is launching one of Canada’s first cannabis real estate investment trusts. CBi2 Capital announced this week investment in Industrial Lifestyle Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (iLP) which will acquire, develop and manage cultivation facilities, industrial properties and real estate for the cannabis industry.

Property Biz Canada

Creative developers repurposing outmoded buildings: AY

Never before has adaptive reuse been so prevalent in both urban and suburban areas than it is today. As land becomes scarce and as towns and cities age, creative developers are stepping in to meet growing demand and are repurposing older, outmoded buildings into much needed residential, office and retail spaces, according to Avison Young’s Topical Report: “Adaptive reuse projects: What’s old is new again.” 

Canada Newswire

Historic Victoria bank building on the block

The historic Merchant’s Bank of Canada building — also known as the Bank of Montreal building — in downtown Victoria is on the market for $15.98 million. Architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury designed the two-storey structure, which has been an anchor on the busy corner of Douglas and Yates streets for 111 years.

Victoria Times Colonist

PropTech companies growing in number and value

Property technology, colloquially known as PropTech, is a collective term used to define startup companies offering technologically innovative products or new business models for the real estate industry. “There are probably dozens of companies that you haven’t even heard of yet, that are competing to get out of the basement and into your boardroom,” said MetaProp NYC partner Zak Schwarzman.

Property Biz Canada

Starlight eyed new DND HQ in Ottawa office acquisition

When Starlight Investments‘ True North Commercial REIT (TNT-UN-T) bought two suburban Ottawa office buildings in the fall of 2017, the property itself was only part of the attraction. A major reason True North snapped up the Bells Corners campus is because of who is moving in just down the road. The neighbour? Canada’s new Department of National Defence headquarters.

Property Biz Canada

Agellan acquires seven Dallas light industrial properties

Agellan Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust ( (ACR-UN-T) announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase (the “Acquisition”) seven light industrial properties located in Northeast Dallas. The acquisition comprises approximately 194,000 square feet of gross leasable area and will be acquired for an aggregate purchase price of approximately US$12.2 million (before closing costs), representing a going-in capitalization rate of approximately 7.7p er cent.

Business Wire – Property Biz Canada

Ucore partner acquires Kentucky industrial facility

Ucore Rare Metals, Inc. (UCU-X) today announced its pending joint venture  partner, Kentucky River Properties LLC of Hazard, Ky., has purchased an industrial facility in Eastern Kentucky. The Trus Joist Facility comprises a 250,000-square-foot primary building, as well as concrete foundations capable of expansion to in excess of 1,000,000 square feet of contiguous indoor production space. The facility has an appraised construction cost of US$125 million.

Globe Newswire

Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain to be modernized

The Musée d’art contemporain will undergo major renovations that will make the popular museum larger, brighter and more contemporary. The transformation will give the museum greater visibility on Ste-Catherine St. beside Place des Arts. The exhibition space will almost double and the restaurant and boutique will be modernized. Renovations will begin in January 2019 and finish in the fall of 2021.

Montreal Gazette

Lululemon seeks new CEO with squeaky-clean image

For the second time in four years, Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU-Q) is looking for a new CEO at a time of intense scrutiny, a situation similar to the challenge it faced heading into 2014. Back then, the company was coming off a controversy over see-through pants. This time around, it’s looking to rebound after inappropriate workplace behavior by CEO Laurent Potdevin, who abruptly left the company in February.

Bbloomberg

Nine West files for bankruptcy protection

Nine West Holdings Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest retailer to do so as it attempts to restructure its debt and refocus on its more successful products. The shoe chain said Friday the bankruptcy filing was made to ease the sale of its Nine West and Bandolino footwear and handbag business, and so it can focus more on its growing businesses.

Windsor Star – CoStar Group

Amazon to open 800,000-square-foot Las Vegas facility

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN-Q) is dipping back into the Nevada pool. The e-commerce giant has revealed it will open an 800,000-square-foot fulfillment centre in North Las Vegas, marking the company’s fourth facility in the state. Amazon’s new state-of-the-art location will add more than 1,000 new full-time positions to the local jobs market, increasing the company’s roster of facility associates in Nevada to more than 4,000. Amazon isn’t new to North Las Vegas.

CP Executive

15 booming markets trending In 2018

The real estate market is heating up. Of course, some markets are hotter than others and have been seeing sales surge in recent months. Plenty of metropolitan areas in North America are reaching new heights in property sales and are on the verge of popping before your very eyes. Below, 15 members of Forbes Real Estate Council share what cities are currently worth considering for a real estate investment.

Forbes

Market Trends and Research

Bell launches all-fibre optic broadband network in Toronto

BCE Inc. threw itself a party to kick off the official marketing campaign for its fibreoptic internet service in Toronto, implicitly taunting rival Rogers Communications Inc. with the slogan “it’s on” as it ramps up the fight for residential customers in Canada’s biggest market. BCE’s Bell Canada, which staged a concert at Yonge-Dundas Square in the city’s downtown Thursday evening to celebrate, didn’t actually flip the switch on anything new.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Canada.businesschief.com

New tools needed to keep old Edmonton from crumbling

The Minchau blacksmith shop opened in 1925 on 81 Avenue and 101 Street, back when Strathcona was home to a thriving German immigrant community. The solid red brick building, with its distinctive roof line and its arched casement windows, gives a certain Wild West feel to the streetscape. It’s the last building of its kind left in Edmonton, a legacy of the pioneer families who shaped Edmonton.

Edmonton Journal

Investor outlook remains stable for U.S. office sector

Despite the overall consensus U.S. commercial real estate is in the late stages of its current cycle, investors in the office sector continue to see strength in the sector. Expectations for rents and occupancies remain bullish. And while there is a general sense that cap rates will rise, respondents overall remain optimistic about the prospects for the space.

National Real Estate Investor

U.S. CRE valuations trending downward

Commercial real estate investors can expect property prices to  trend downward in the near future, according to Green Street Advisors. It’s a trend the industry is already starting to see. Two recent transactions in the mall sector — Brookfield Property Partners’ acquisition of General Growth Properties (GGP) and UnibailRodamco’s acquisition of Westfield Corp. — have dragged retail valuations down further.

National Real Estate Investor

Real Estate Companies

Lego billionaires shopping for London real estate

The fund managing the wealth of the billionaires who own Lego A/S wants to buy more London real estate. Undeterred by Britain’s plan to exit the European Union, the $16-billion Kirkbi A/S fund earlier this year bought the Porter’s Wharf office property in London’s King’s Cross district, marking its third real estate investment in the U.K. capital, it told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg

Windsor poised to seize seven properties for tax debts

The City of Windsor may soon become the reluctant owner of seven properties for which the unpaid taxes add up to $2.3 million. The list ranges from the former Thunder Food Court on Wyandotte Street West, which has a whopping $1.6 million in tax arrears and penalties, to a vacant Elgin Street lot, with $4,735 in taxes owed, probably because the owner discovered it was in the middle of a swamp.

Windsor Star

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Nexus’s revamped acquisition strategy means future upside

In early 2018, Nexus REIT (EFRTF) dropped its co-CEO structure that was in place when Edgefront REIT and Nobel REIT were merged.  Kelly Hanczyk taking the helm of CEO marks the return of the growth strategy he used when he managed Edgefront REIT. Back in the pre-Nexus REIT days, Edgefront grew by using a sales leaseback strategy where the REIT would approach the property owners.

Seeking Alpha

Slate Retail’s 8.8% yield could be uniquely reliable

Slate Retail REIT (SRT-UN-T) has found a defensible, thriving, and profitable retail real estate niche that is still growing and generating reliable cash flows to support its rich 8.8 per cent distribution yield going forward, making the REIT a potentially good income play candidate. Slate Retail, constituted in April 2014, owns 86 grocery-anchored retail commercial properties comprising 11.2 million square feet of gross leasable area in the U.S.

Motley Fool

Retail

B.C.’s specialty foods sector draws global M&A interest

Two multimillion-dollar cross-border deals made their way into the top 10 list of B.C.’s corporate finance deals of 2017. The two deals include the $405-million acquisition by Japan’s Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. of Vancouver-based Daiya Foods Inc., which makes dairy-free cheese and yogurt alternatives. Also on the list is Italian coffee conglomerate Lavazza Group spending $215 million to buy an 80% equity stake in Invermere’s Kicking Horse Coffee.

Business In Vancouver

Cannabis industry news

Entrepreneurs deride, dismiss Calgary’s strict cannabis bylaws

Among the stacks of glass bongs and marijuana imagery, there’s not a whiff of pot smoke. But there is a beer garden just steps away at the Calgary Cannabis and Hemp Expo. The situation is perhaps symbolic of what a bylaw will uphold once the drug is legalized, as city council approved rules last week that will ban most public consumption of marijuana.

Calgary Herald

B.C. liquor store owners want cannabis retail option

Alcohol retailers remain eager to sell recreational cannabis despite the B.C. government’s decision to forbid retailers from selling cannabis alongside tobacco or alcohol in the same store once the federal government legalizes adult use of the drug later this year. For private liquor store operators, that means either hiring construction crews to build walls and split stores into separate spaces or leasing new space.

Business In Vancouver

New Development

AI research hub launched at University of Waterloo

How to develop and use artificial intelligence will be the focus of a new institute launched by the University of Waterloo.  The announcement Friday said the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute will bring together a group of researchers and businesses to “advance technology and prepare Canada for future economic disruption.” The mandate of the institute will be to research areas with societal and business impact.

CBC

Sports Venues

Las Vegas sets bond sale for new Raiders’ stadium

Welcome what will undoubtedly be the new emblem of the sports stadium genre: Clark County, Nevada’s $647.95-million general obligation stadium improvement bonds. The debt is being sold to help pay for the county’s share of the new $1.8 billion, 65,000-seat football stadium being built south of the Las Vegas Strip for the National Football League’s Raiders, who currently play in Oakland.

Bloomberg

Renovation and Restoration

Historic water tower converted to art gallery

On his initial tour of Calgary’s St. Mary’s University Campus in 2011, president and vice-chancellor Gerry Turcotte says he was struck by the prominence of the tall wooden water tower. Although there were murmurs about demolishing it, Turcotte says the tower became somewhat of an obsession with him and he began to devise plans that would transform it into a useful structure and a point of pride.

Calgary Herald

Other

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