Bid dropped, Pure Multi-Family ends sale process

Bid dropped, Pure Multi-Family ends sale process

Pure Multi-Family REIT LP (RUF-U-X) has terminated its potential sale after the lone remaining suitor dropped its bid this week. The process began back in April following two unsolicited takeover offers by U.S.-based multi-residential investor Electra America. They were both rejected because Pure’s management felt they were undervalued, and that Pure could entice another investor to pay a higher price.

Property Biz Canada

Mayfair Centre’s $72M expansion nears completion

New locations and bigger spaces are being opened in Ivanhoé Cambridge’s Mayfair Centre now that its $72-million expansion is nearing completion. Sport Chek, Saje Natural Wellness and a larger Aritzia fashion store are first to open. The Victoria mall is growing by 100,000 square feet of new retail space, creating a total of 520,000 square feet of retail.

Victoria Times Colonist – Property Biz Canada

True North buys GTA, Calgary office buildings

True North Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust (TNT-UN-T) continues to grow its Canadian portfolio with the acquisitions of office buildings in Richmond Hill, Ont., and Calgary. The Calgary acquisition, announced late Thursday, is a 148,000-square-foot building at 1020 68th Ave. Northeast in the Deerfoot North Business Centre. The 122,000-square-foot Richmond Hill property, at 6 Staples Ave., is the Canadian head office for Staples Business Depot.

Property Biz Canada – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Investors still chasing Calgary office assets

The renewed appeal of commercial real estate investment which took hold in Calgary in mid-2016 has continued through the first six months of 2018, according to a new report by Barclay Street Real Estate. The company, in its mid-year analysis, reports a 23 per cent year-over-year increase in dollar volume at the end of June, with total sales of assets worth more than $1 million jumping to $1.26 billion.

Property Biz Canada

Vancouver office vacancy rate nears record low

Metro Vancouver’s office market appears headed for a record-low vacancy rate, possibly dropping below figures not seen since 2007-’08, according to Avison Young’s Mid-Year 2018 North America and Europe Office Market Report. Office vacancy has tightened to its lowest point since 2012 and is expected to approach the record-low vacancies of a decade ago within the next 18 months.

Vancouver Sun – Property Biz Canada

Westbank’s Ian Gillespie a builder on a mission

Ian Gillespie had a problem: a piece of land the shape of a triangle. It was 2010, and he was already an established developer. A few years earlier, his company, Westbank Corp., had built Vancouver’s tallest tower, the 62-storey Shangri-La, and redeveloped the historic Woodward’s site. However, this property posed a new challenge. It was an awkward piece of land, wedged alongside an on-ramp to the Granville Street Bridge.

Globe and Mail – Property Biz Canada

Killam continues to diversify outside Atlantic Canada

Acquisitions of residential properties in Carleton Place, Ont., Calgary and Edmonton are moving Killam Apartment REIT (KMP-UN-T) closer to its goal of having 50 per cent of annualized net operating income generated from outside of Atlantic Canada. In an interview with RENX, president/CEO Philip Fraser said with the recent transactions, the Halifax-based REIT forecasts approximately 29 per cent of its annualized NOI will be generated from outside of its base.

Property Biz Canada

Hotel, condo tower proposed for downtown Edmonton

A development group wants to add another high-rise to the downtown Edmonton warehouse district, potentially uprooting popular Blue Plate Diner restaurant. The group – comprised of Limak Investments and Urban Capital, working with Dialog Design and Lemaymichaud Architecture — is proposing a 33-storey building. It  said it wants to rezone the properties from a heritage zone to a site-specific development.

CBC

$30M insect farm planned for Balzac, Alta.

The billions of squirming, wriggling larvae that will inhabit a new $30-million warehouse facility near Balzac represent the future of farming, according to a B.C.-based insect production company that is set to expand into Alberta early next year. “We’re revolutionizing a new kind of agriculture,” said Victoria Leung, spokeswoman for Enterra Feed Corporation. “Our livestock are insects.”

Edmonton Journal

Commercial mortgage-backed securities market sputters along

While the U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities market has been thriving of late, its Canadian counterpart has been intermittent at best. Thus far, new CMBS issuance in 2018 has been limited to a couple of deals – the most recent closing late last month and another in June before that.  Hanging over the Canadian CMBS market are new challenges created by its U.S. neighbour. 

CoStar Group

Farmers the real victims of GTH land deal: Opinion

According to the news-media version of the infamous land deal at the Global Transportation Hub, taxpayers lost as much as $14 million to opportunistic land developers. In reality, the cost of the scandal could be in the billions — and the real victims are farmers.

CBC

CPPIB, Goodman increase China equity commitment to $5B

Goodman Group and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) have committed an additional US$1.75 billion in equity to the Goodman China Logistics Partnership (GCLP). Of that figure, US$1.4 billion will come from CPPIB, with Goodman investing US$350 million, taking their total equity commitment in GCLP to US$5 billion. The Goodman-CPPIB (20-80) partnership was established in 2009.

IPE Real Assets – PR Newswire

Ivanhoé plans $450M industrial project in California

Ivanhoé Cambridge has acquired two large parcels of land from CapRock Partners in Ontario, Calif., which will be developed as Colony Commerce Center, a more-than-$450 million, class-A industrial project, the two companies announced. CapRock Partners will develop the 11-building, two-phase project on behalf of Ivanhoé Cambridge. The purchase price was not disclosed.

CP Executive – Property Biz Canada

Facebook piling up Bay Area office space

Facebook’s leasing momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing down, with another entire campus lease in the works in the San Francisco Peninsula. The tech company’s leases so far this year have totalled more than 3.7 million square feet, and it has well over six million square feet in leased/owned property in the Bay Area. Facebook (FB-Q) earlier broke records by leasing the largest amount of office space in San Francisco’s history.

Bisnow

Brexit looms over U.K. real estate market

Investors are ditching British real estate as Brexit uncertainty, rising interest rates and inflation erode house prices and office values in a market hurtling toward a potentially messy exit from the European Union. Shorting REIT stocks is gaining in popularity, as the government publishes plans to cope with any disruption if Britain and the EU can’t agree on the terms of its departure.

Reuters – The Real Deal

Featured Column

Hi-tech communication can’t replace in-person meeting

Today’s communication tools include email, voicemail, social media, text and electronic messaging services, video and audio conference calls and more recently, telepresence robots. All of these can be useful, however there are times when they just cannot replace a “belly-to-belly” meeting.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Economic growth slowdown expected for most of Ontario

Apart from Greater Sudbury and St. Catharines-Niagara, Ontario’s medium-sized metropolitan areas can expect economic growth to moderate this year, according to The Conference Board of Canada’slatest Metropolitan Outlook. Still, Oshawa and Guelph are expected to boast the fastest growing economies among the 16 cities covered in the report, with growth of 2.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively.

Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

Coworking will only get more popular in Australia

One of Australia’s biggest office landlords Investa predicts that all of its major buildings will have coworking spaces in them in the future, as the commercial property sector adapts to a shifting market. The company considers flexible workspace operators to be “friends” rather than rivals, Investa group executive Michael Cook told the Sydney audience at the Global Coworking Unconference Conference Australia 2018.

Commercial Real Estate

REOC Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Urbanfund Corp., (UFC-X), Globe Newswire

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Lanesborough REIT, (LRT-UN-T), Canada Newswire

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Zell’s best REIT is in manufactured housing market

Real estate mogul Sam Zell‘s Equity LifeStyle Properties, the largest owner of RV and mobile home parks in the U.S., has reaped the rewards of increased demand from Americans in search of more affordable housing options. With its value hitting a high of $95/share on Aug. 16, Equity LifeStyle (ELS-N) — which also offers smaller accommodations like tepees, tents and yurts — is Zell’s most profitable enterprise.

Bisnow – Crain’s Chicago Business

Which residential REIT should you buy today?

Residential REITs are generally a stable area to invest, because everyone needs a place to live. If you don’t own a place, you must rent one. Other than Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAPREIT) (CAR.UN-T) — the best in class in the residential REIT industry, but that is, in my opinion, overvalued — there are Boardwalk REIT (BEI.UN-T), Killam Apartment REIT (KMP-UN-T) and Northview Apartment REIT (NVU.UN-T.

Motley Fool

Retail

T&T unveils flagship store in Richmond, B.C.

Already Canada’s largest Asian grocery chain, T&T Supermarket has expanded again with the opening of its 26th store in the City of Richmond, near Vancouver. Located at Lansdowne Centre in a space formerly occupied by Target, the 70,000-square-foot  store is the chain’s largest and becomes its flagship location.

Canadian Grocer

Filipino supermarket taking Sears space in Winnipeg mall

An American grocery chain will be setting up shop in Garden City Shopping Centre next summer. Seafood City Supermarket is taking over the old Sears location, mall owner RioCan REIT (REI-UN-T) announced Thursday.  The supermarket, which features shopping, dining and retail, will take up about 43,000 square feet. RioCan says the former Sears location will be redesigned to fit another large retailer, plus a number of smaller ones.

CBC – Winnipeg Free Press

Costco opens its 100th warehouse in Canada

Costco opened the doors to a 149,000-square-foot warehouse – and the discount chain’s 100th in Canada – in Nisku, Alta., on Wednesday morning, just a stone’s throw from the Edmonton airport. The store includes Costco’s usual array of specialty departments including an on-site bakery, fresh meat, fresh produce and rotisserie chicken sections, a tire centre, pharmacy and an optical centre.

Canadian Grocer

Cannabis industry news

LiveWell signs US$35M cannabinoid supply deal in Brazil

One of the National Capital Region’s burgeoning pot producers has signed a lucrative deal to supply its concentrated cannabinoids in Brazil. Gatineau-based LiveWell Canada (LVWL-X), which is converting a 550,000-square-foot greenhouse in Ottawa’s rural south to a cannabis grow-op, announced this week it has entered into a deal to supply a minimum 5,000 kilograms of isolated cannabidiol (CBD) annually to the South American market.

Ottawa Business Journal – Ottawa Business Journal – Ottawa Business Journal

Aphria to supply pot for Ontario’s online sales

Leamington’s Aphria Inc. has struck a deal to supply marijuana to the Ontario government’s online store as the province takes its next big step toward bringing legal weed to the masses. Aphria is among 26 producers to reach agreements with the Ontario Cannabis Store, which will operate the only legal online retail outlet for marijuana in the province.

Windsor Star – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Technology

ATB looking to upgrade video surveillance systems

Every ATB Financial branch in Alberta could soon see new video surveillance installed as part of a project that will overhaul security at more than 178 locations. If the surveillance solution is scalable, the province’s largest Alberta-based financial institution will consider making it available at another 143 agency locations.

Edmonton Journal

Other

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