Waterfront Shores to develop Hamilton’s West Harbourfront

Waterfront Shores to develop Hamilton’s West Harbourfront

The City of Hamilton Council Wednesday approved Waterfront Shores Corporation as the preferred proponent for the Pier 8 waterfront development. The 5.24-hectare development site will support new residential, commercial and institutional space on nine development blocks. In all, 1,292 condominium units will spread across 20 separate buildings, with at-grade townhouses located on all eight residential blocks. 65 of those units will be administered as affordable housing by Habitat for Humanity Hamilton.

Canada Newswire – Hamilton Spectator

Square One announces west expansion plans

Mississauga’s Square One Wednesday announced details of the west expansion development. With construction well underway, the west expansion will open in November 2018, beginning with the arrival of global casual apparel retailer UNIQLO and other soon-to-be announced major retailers. In addition, Square One will be home to The Rec Room. Square One is owned by Oxford Properties and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo).

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada

CF CEO ‘all-in’ on Toronto downtown office market

With two major office projects which will deliver more than two million square feet of space to the market, Cadillac Fairview CEO John Sullivan says his company is “all-in” for downtown Toronto. “We’re excited,” he told RENX. “We’ve got two very large developments going on in downtown Toronto and we’ve got 10 million square feet here already. So we’re all-in for Toronto.”

Property Biz Canada

Cameron Developments the ‘100-year-hold’ company

South Edmonton Common, the project that put Edmonton’s Cameron Developments on the map, opened the doors of its first retail big box 20 years ago – Home Depot (HD-N). Since that time, Cameron has built out the 320-acre power centre site with 2.3 million square feet of retail development. The private, family-owned firm has 14 retail developments underway, and has participated in transactions involving more than eight million square feet of development.

Property Biz Canada

Retail REITs expected to cash in on shift to residential

Retail REITs are poised to reap tremendous benefits from a number of tailwinds over the next couple of years, despite rising interest rates and the growth of e-commerce, as they pivot to mixed-use and residential development, analysts say. Apartment and retail REITs have been moving in opposite directions over the past year, with residential generally outperforming as retail lagged.

Financial Post

Quebec builder rides a rising tide in seniors’ housing

Réal Bouclin has over the past three decades built a mini-empire of seniors’ housing in Quebec. His company Réseau Sélection is vying with Chartwell Retirement Residences for the top spot in the province. He’s also on the cusp of expanding outside Quebec, with projects for Toronto and Ottawa as well as plans for toeholds in British Columbia, the United States and even China.

Globe and Mail – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

L Catterton joins Carbonleo’s $1.7B Montreal Royalmount project

International private equity investor L Catterton Real Estate is buying into Royalmount, a $1.7-billion mixed-use business and entertainment district by Carbonleo on the Island of Montreal. L Catterton Real Estate (LCRE) is the real estate investment and development arm of L Catterton. Royalmount is designed as a multi-functional destination in the City of Mount Royal and was created by Andrew Lutfy and his development team at Carbonleo.

Property Biz Canada

Ottawa developer secures approval for 20-storey apartment

The city’s planning committee has endorsed plans for a 166-unit rental apartment at the corner of Richmond Road and Woodroffe Avenue, steps from a planned light-rail station. The site has seen several proposals – each progressively taller – over the past decade.

Ottawa Business Journal

Halifax nixing expressways, building condos, parks

Canada’s maritime city of Halifax is succeeding where Toronto has failed: tearing down an eyesore of an expressway in the heart of downtown and replacing it with condos, parks and bike paths. The demolition of the Cogswell Interchange, a 50-year-old multi-level highway that cuts off parts of the city from the Altantic Ocean, is part of an ambitious overhaul of the port city.

Bloomberg

YVR hikes expansion-plan estimate by 62%, to $9.1 billion

The Vancouver Airport Authority’s (VAA) $9.1 billion estimate for how much 75 major projects during the next 20 years will cost is $3.5 billion more than what the airport authority estimated in January 2017 – a 62.5% jump. The new figure, released June 14, is said to account for inflation.

Business in Vancouver

The ‘mother of all credit bubbles’ is brewing

Now, 12 years later, it’s happening again. This time, however, it’s not households using cheap debt to take cash out of their overvalued homes. Rather, it is giant corporations using cheap debt – and a one-time tax windfall – to take cash from their balance sheets and send it to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and, in particular, stock buybacks.

Financial Post

Landlords practically giving away U.S. malls

Landlords have malls they’d like to unload. But who’d want to buy them? As they battle the rise of e-commerce, U.S. mall owners are trying to clear their books of fading centres so they can focus on the most profitable ones. That’s proving difficult, with just a shallow pool of investors who are willing to take on a declining mall and even fewer who would pay what the landlords want.

Bloomberg

80-storey 3 World Trade Center opens after delays

 An 80-storey office building set to open at the World Trade Center will be the third completed skyscraper at the site where the twin towers stood. The June 11 ribbon-cutting for the 1,079-foot 3 World Trade Center marks a major step in the rebuilding of the site.

Construct Canada

Blackstone triples fundraising goal for REIT

Blackstone Group (BX-N) is tripling its fundraising goal for the non-traded REIT it started last year. The company said in its initial filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission it planned to raise $5 billion for Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT), but now says it will raise an additional $10 billion. The change is due to how quickly the REIT has been selling its shares so far.

The Real Deal

Report describes Dubai real estate as money-laundering haven

War profiteers, terror financiers and drug traffickers sanctioned by the U.S. in recent years have used Dubai’s real-estate market as a haven for their assets, a new report released Tuesday alleges. The report by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defence Studies, relying on leaked property data from the city-state, offers evidence to support the long-whispered rumours about Dubai’s real-estate boom.

Vancouver Sun – CTV News

Market Trends and Research

Sydney’s CBD office rental growth at highest-ever rate: CBRE

Steady demand, low supply, higher employment and buoyant business confidence have all converged to put huge pressure on the Sydney CBD office market. “We are going through a tighter market than we have ever experienced in our lifetimes,” said CBRE’s Jenine Cranston. “We’ve never seen this kind of rent growth ever before. And with vacancy rates so low, this will continue for a while yet.”

Commercial Real Estate News – Commercial Real Estate News – Commercial Real Estate News – Sydney Morning Herald

Chinese investors targeting Aussie real estate

Chinese investors and developers are targeting smaller, higher-quality real estate assets in Australia in response to Beijing’s recent restrictions on capital outflows, says a report by KPMG and the University of Sydney. Tighter control of overseas direct investments and deal-approval regulations saw Australia’s share of China’s global spend fall 11 per cent to US$10.3 billion in 2017, faring better than the United States (down 35 per cent) and Europe (down 17 per cent) in the year.

Commercial Real Estate News

Real Estate Companies

Montreal project manager Macogep acquires French engineering firm

A Montreal-based project management company has acquired a French engineering firm as it looks to expand its presence in Europe. Macogep, which already has offices in France, announced the acquisition of Lyon-based Keeping on Thursday.

Montreal Gazette

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Allied announces $260 million equity offering

Globe Newswire – Property Biz Canada

Partners REIT secures $5.2M mortgage for Quebec property

Partners Real Estate Investment Trust (PAR.UN-T) is pleased to announce that it has finalized a new mortgage at the REIT’s Repentigny Shopping Centre property in Repentigny, Quebec with CMLS. The mortgage closed today and is for $5.2 million, has a five-year term, a 25 year amortization period and an interest rate of 4.13%. 

Globe Newswire

Retail

DavidsTea shareholders elect retail magnate Herschel Segal

Canadian retail industry magnate Herschel Segal has won a proxy contest giving him control of DavidsTea Inc., setting one of the country’s leading retail brands on a new course amid annual losses and waning same-store sales growth. The Montreal-based founder of clothing chain Le Château, started DavidsTea a decade ago with his cousin David Segal.

Globe and Mail – CBC

E-commerce companies increasingly taking businesses in-store

When Edmonton-based sisters Kendall and Justine Barber launched Poppy Barley, a made-to-order footwear brand that has become a perennial budget-day favourite with federal finance minister Bill Morneau, they envisioned they would operate solely online. But that all changed within 30 days of the business’s launch, when the sisters started getting calls from potential customers, saying “I am really interested in your boots, but I need to see them first.”

Windsor Star – Canadian Grocer – Globe and Mail

Maison Birks Montreal flagship store reopens

Birks Group announced its new Maison Birks flagship on Square Phillips in downtown Montreal is open for business following extensive renovations. Boasting 7,700 square feet and reflecting the Company’s latest concept, the store now features boutiques by leading international fine jewellery brands Chaumet, Messika and Van Cleef & Arpels in addition to Birks Collections.

Canada Newswire

Cannabis industry news

Sundial Growers using Alberta builder for flagship facility

With recreational cannabis legalization expected later this year, an Alberta-based pot producer is using some homegrown technological advancements for its planned 70,000-square-foot growing facility. The team at Sundial Growers of Olds, about 95 kilometres north of Calgary, has teamed up with Alberta construction company Modus Structures to design massive, modular buildings specifically designed for cannabis cultivation.

Calgary Herald

Infrastructure

Domino’s filling pizza-ruining potholes

America’s infrastructure is in a sorry state. Bridges are crumbling, airports and seaports are falling into disrepair, and roads are covered in potholes. Domino’s is so tired of potholes ruining its pizzas it has taken to fixing them itself. The pizza chain said in a press release it’s tired of potholes ruining “great-tasting pizza,” so it’s begun repairing these potholes in a handful of American towns.

Popular Mechanics – The Guardian

Aecon CEO says Canadian firms must be allowed to bulk up

The head of Aecon Group Inc. says the company will pass up billions worth of potential international contracts after Ottawa rejected its sale to a state-owned Chinese buyer, a decision that has prompted the construction firm to recalibrate its growth plans and look to restore its battered share price.

Financial Post

Technology

Virtual real estate can set you back $200K

A plot of land in Genesis City can go for as much as $200,000 — though interested buyers will need virtual-reality headsets to visit it. The blockchain-based real estate is made of 90,000 digital plots, Bloomberg reported. Not much is built in this high-stakes “SimCity,” though the Washington, D.C.-sized world is already divided into themed neighbourhoods, including one inspired by “Blade Runner” and Las Vegas. 

The Real Deal – Bloomberg

Other

Public art unveiled at Edmonton Brewery District

First Capital Realty will unveil the inaugural public art installation “Carbon Copy” at the Edmonton Brewery District on Friday, June 15, 2018. The sculpture, created by Alberta-based artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett, evokes the possibility of renewed understanding through a shift in perspective.

Globe Newswire

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