Brookfield moves to simplify structure of N.A. property arm

Brookfield moves to simplify structure of N.A. property arm

The largest shareholder of Brookfield Canada Office Properties (BOX.UN-T) is offering to buy the rest of the real estate trust’s equity for $30.10 cash per unit, a 14.8 per cent premium to Friday’s closing price in Toronto. Brookfield Property Partners LP says its purchase of the remaining BOX units would simplify BPY’s structure and fully integrate the company’s North American office operations.

Globe and Mail – Bloomberg

RioCan CEO plots 2017 Toronto projects

The head of Canada’s largest REIT is adding more projects to his redevelopment pipeline amid unprecedented heat in Toronto’s housing market. Ed Sonshine, the CEO of RioCan REIT (REI.UN-T), is in the planning stages for several large sites this year that may push the company beyond an original goal of building 10,000 residential units in the next decade.

Bloomberg – Bloomberg

REALPAC sheds light on massive closed-end funds sector

Closed-end funds are the deep sea creatures of the real estate world. Somewhat mysterious, rarely catalogued or reported on. REALPAC has shed some light on the murky sector with its inaugural closed-end fund survey. Although hardly encyclopedic, it portrays an under-exposed segment of the industry that is truly enormous.

Property Biz Canada

Vancouver site’s price triples assessed value

The sale of a downtown site for three times last year’s assessed value highlights the continuing strong demand for commercial real estate in Vancouver’s central business district. The Executive Group of Companies has agreed to spend $19 million to buy a 6,240-square-foot site at 833 West Pender Street that houses an Edward Chapman Ltd. menswear store.

Business In Vancouver

Montreal architecture icon helped shape a city

Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), turns 90 on Tuesday. To mark the occasion, the CCA is hosting a small exhibition on her life and work. Curated by Lambert herself, it recounts a life of architectural activism, starting with the commissioning of the landmark Seagram’s Building in New York from 1954-58.

Montreal Gazette

Montreal’s Le 1500 earns LEED EB:O&M certification

Ivanhoé Cambridge’s Le 1500 has cemented its place as one of the most energy-efficient office buildings in Montreal with a LEED Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (EB:O&M) certification from the Canada Green Building Council to join its BOMA BEST Platinum certification.

Property Biz Canada

Quebec’s hydro surplus invested in data hub initiative

Quebec is gaining ground in its push to become one of the world’s biggest jurisdictions for data warehousing, tapping its hydro-power surpluses to lure a growing list of companies including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Utility Hydro-Québec is leading an effort to speed up development of data hosting in the province, especially in Montreal, after years of slow growth.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Architect backs Ottawa site for central branch

The designer behind one of Canada’s most celebrated library buildings is praising the Ottawa Public Library’s proposal to build a new main branch on LeBreton Flats instead of the downtown core. Danish architect Morten Schmidt is a co-founder of Schmidt Hammer Lassen, the Copenhagen-based design firm responsible for several libraries around the world.

CBC

Green light for second phase of Ottawa’s light-rail plan

The second phase for Ottawa’s light rail transit has cleared another hurdle, with the NCC approving of the city’s construction plans on its lands in the west. Phase two of the city’s light-rail plan would extend the line to Baseline and Bayshore in the west as well as Trim Road in the east.

Ottawa Business Journal – Ottawa Business Journal

Report on Montreal light rail ‘ignores reality’: Caisse

Quebec’s pension fund fired back at a review commission’s report criticizing the proposed $5.9-billion electric light rail project. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has proposed spearheading a $5.9-billion project to build a driverless electric train that would link the South Shore, the downtown core, the West Island and the North Shore with the airport. 

Montreal Gazette – CBC

Harnessing the collective power at Copperleaf

When Vancouver-based Copperleaf Technologies Inc. moved to a new office in East Vancouver, everyone in the company was invited to participate in the plan. “In high tech, your team is everything,” says Judi Hess, CEO of the firm, which designs decision analytics software for hydro, gas and water companies.

BCBusiness

Lush Cosmetics brushes off downsizing trend

Beauty retailer Lush Cosmetics is tripling its average store size over the next three years, bucking the downsizing trend of many bricks-and-mortar storefronts across North America. The retailer is grappling with an enviable business problem: after seven years of double-digit same-store sales growth, many of its locations have become too crowded during peak shopping times.

Financial Post

Pressure on chains to shutter more stores

Reeling from a shaky holiday season and slowing mall traffic, U.S. retailers are facing increasing pressure to close stores as more of their business migrates to the internet. More than 10 per cent of U.S. retail space, or nearly one billion square feet, may need to be closed, converted to other uses or renegotiated for lower rent in coming years.

Bloomberg

Governments should learn to pass the buck on natural disaster costs

There is often a perception that the costs associated with natural disasters are paid out of many pockets, including governments of all levels, insurers, property owners and others. The reality is that when there is a catastrophe, taxpayers are generally left to cover a substantial portion of the expenses, both directly and indirectly.

Globe and Mail

Trump properties face global terror risk

Businesses around the world bearing U.S. President Donald Trump’s name face an increased risk, security experts warn, especially as several are in areas previously targeted by violence. As Trump remains a brand overseas, criminal gangs or militants could target buildings bearing his name in gold, abduct workers associated with his enterprises for ransom or worse, they say.

Winnipeg Free Press

Market Trends and Research

Challenge reveals top picks of future leaders

More than 195 students from 38 universities across North America and Europe are competing in the 2017 Real Confidence University Challenge, a year-long competition for university students to gain hands-on learning experience in public and private commercial real estate investing.

Marketwired

Home-based businesses soar in Calgary

A growing number of laid-off Calgarians who have turned to entrepreneurship are angering their neighbours in the process. The city recorded a year-over-year 78 per cent spike in the number of complaints against businesses in 2016 and a 63 per cent jump in bylaw charges — numbers officials say are influenced by a rise in Calgarians operating businesses from their homes amid a shrinking job market.

Calgary Herald

Real Estate Companies

Commercial driver training facility coming to Edmonton

The Alberta Motor Transport Association is set to build a new training facility at the Edmonton International Airport this summer. Having outgrown the current Edmonton office, the transport association plans to build a 20,000-square-foot training facility, a five-acre test driving track and a truck driving simulation trainer at the EIA site.

Edmonton Journal

Gibsons brewery faces eviction because of ALR regulations

The clock is ticking for Persephone Brewing Co. after a panel of the Agricultural Land Commission gave the Sunshine Coast’s farm-based brewery two years to comply with provincial regulations, or halt operations. Persephone had hoped to get around a requirement that it grow at least 50 per cent of the raw material for its beer on its 11-acre site.

Vancouver Province

Avison Young acquires Atlanta-based Rich Real Estate Services

Avison Young has acquired Atlanta-based full-service real estate brokerage company Rich Real Estate Services, Inc. The purchase further expands Avison Young’s landlord-representation advisory services in Atlanta and the U.S. Southeast. 

Canada Newswire

Real Estate Investment Trusts

H&R completes debenture financing

H&R Real Estate Investment Trust (HR.UN-T) announced today it completed its previously announced offering of $150 million principal amount of floating rate Series M senior unsecured debentures due July 23, 2019. 

Canada Newswire

Slate Retail closes public offering, private placement

Slate Retail REIT (SRT.UN-T), an owner and operator of U.S. grocery-anchored real estate, announced the closing of its previously announced public offering of 5,209,500 class U units of the REIT at a price of C$14.35 per unit or US$10.89 per unit for gross proceeds of approximately C$74.8 million. 

Marketwired

Consider these REITS instead of a mortgage

Killam Apartment REIT (KMP.UN-T) focuses on multi-family residential homes primarily in Atlantic Canada, but it has recently begun to increase exposure to other areas of the country, specifically Alberta and Ontario. Northview Apartment REIT (NVU.UN-T) is the third-largest REIT in the country and one of the most diversified options for any portfolio.

Motley Fool

NorthWest announces management appointments

NorthWest Healthcare Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (NWH.UN-T) has made the following changes: Bernard Crotty to the position of president; Peter Riggin is promoted to the newly created position of chief operating officer; Shailen Chande is promoted to the position of chief financial officer; Vincent Cozzi, formerly president and chief investment officer, has resigned from the REIT for personal reasons.

Canada Newswire

Retail

Canadian retail sales, CPI data see weak results

The consumer price index advanced 1.5 per cent in December from a year earlier, and retail sales rose 0.2 per cent, Statistics Canada reported Friday from Ottawa, both missing forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Three new measures of core inflation remained at or below two per cent.

Bloomberg

Small retailers also need a break from credit-card fees

There was a deafening silence from larger players in the business community after the recent announcement that a truce on credit card “swipe fees” had been reached between Visa Inc. and Wal-Mart Canada Corp. This is, without doubt, because other corporate giants will now be lining up to demand similar treatment from Visa. 

Globe and Mail

Co-ops adapting to new reality

Saskatchewan’s co-ops, many of which were founded more than a century ago, started as singular ventures in communities across the province, but as times have changed they have had to adapt. In Saskatchewan there are currently 109 co-op associations operating in approximately 250 communities. 

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Controversial e-book sales tactic banned in Canada

Apple Inc.’s long legal struggle over alleged anti-competitive e-book pricing took another turn on Friday as the company joined a consent agreement with Canada’s Competition Bureau that will ban a controversial sales tactic for three years. Three of Canada’s four major book publishers also agreed to halt a system known as most-favoured nation (MFN) pricing.

Globe and Mail – CBC

Party’s over for British retail

After the Brexit vote, Christmas was always going to be the British consumer’s last hurrah. Official data makes it look like the party never even got started. The volume of goods sold in December fell 1.9 per cent from November, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, the biggest drop since April 2012.

Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Bloomberg

Restaurants and Eateries

McDonald’s U.S. store sales fall less than expected

McDonald’s Corp‘s (MCD-N) U.S. comparable restaurant sales fell less than analysts had expected in the fourth quarter as strong demand for its all-day breakfast brought more people to its restaurants. Sales at established McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. declined 1.3 per cent in the three months ended Dec. 31.

Reuters – CBC

New Development

Winnipeg’s Kapyong Barracks coming down

The demolition of Kapyong Barracks buildings will go ahead because Winnipeggers did not raise concerns about the plan. The Department of National Defence sent letters to residents who live around the former military base, noting it intended to destroy all 41 buildings, internal roadways, surface parking lots and underground utilities including electrical, gas, water and sewer lines.

Winnipeg Free Press

Edmonton makes second attempt at child-friendly planning

Two new parks built and under construction in the downtown core will provide space for gardeners, outdoor coffee drinkers, even dog walkers. But despite Edmonton city council’s long-term push to attract more families downtown, the parks will not have play space for children.

Edmonton Journal

Renovation and Restoration

Ottawa’s Lord Elgin Hotel completes renovations

The Lord Elgin Hotel has completed its multimillion-dollar renovations in time for what management hopes will be a record year in 2017. The overhaul began last year while the hotel was celebrating its 75th anniversary, with hopes of capitalizing on the highly anticipated Ottawa 2017 festivities.

Ottawa Business Journal

Infrastructure

Dozens of Manitoba’s rail crossings need upgrades

Manitoba municipalities are starting the heavy lifting to upgrade at least four dozen railway crossings to meet new federal standards, a process that has to be complete within four years. It could cost municipalities and railways — which will cost-share most of the upgrades with some help from the federal government — between $10 million and $12 million minimum.

Winnipeg Free Press

Other

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