Amazon buying Whole Foods

Amazon buying Whole Foods

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN-Q) will acquire Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFM-Q) in a $13.7 billion US deal, marking the biggest transaction ever for the e-commerce giant as it pushes deeper into groceries. Amazon will pay $42 a share in cash for the organic-food chain, the companies said Friday. John Mackey, Whole Foods’ outspoken co-founder and CEO, will continue to run the business.  

Bloomberg – Winnipeg Free Press – Reuters – Toronto Star

Germany’s Aldi takes aim at Walmart

Aldi is coming after Walmart‘s (WMT-N) grocery market share, as the German discount retailer said it will invest $3.4 billion US to expand its U.S. presence. The privately held German grocery store plans to increase its store base to 2,500 by 2022, the company said Monday. Aldi currently operates 1,600 U.S. stores. 

The Street – CoStar Group – Reuters – Business Insider

Ivanhoé Cambridge building Paris Duo high-rises

Construction has begun on Ivanhoé Cambridge’s 1.1-million-square-foot Duo high rise tower project in Paris. Set for completion in 2021, the mixed-use project in the 13th arrondissement of Paris consists of 27- and 39-storey office towers, a 139-room hotel, retail space, public gardens, a sky bar and an auditorium.

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

More malls set to become mixed-use developments

The future of shopping centres lies in mixed-use developments, according to the author of Colliers International Consulting’s new national retail report. “I think that in increasingly rare circumstances will we see large-scale retail-only developments,” said Colliers vice-president and director of retail consulting James Smerdon.

Property Biz Canada

Shopping centres consider life after Sears

The fate of Sears Canada (SCC-T) is uncertain and that has members of Winnipeg’s retail industry speculating about the future. Sears has four big-box stores in Winnipeg. All of them are either in or connected to regional shopping centres — CF Polo Park, St. Vital Centre, Kildonan Place and Garden City Shopping Centre. 

Winnipeg Free Press – CBC – Winnipeg Free Press

Edmonton could become marijuana industry centre: Exec

The huge production and processing plant Aurora Cannabis is building beside Edmonton International Airport could help make the region a centre for Canada’s marijuana industry, a company official says. Aurora is investing more than $100 million into the 75,000-square-metre Aurora Sky project, which should be in production by the end of the year.

Edmonton Journal – Edmonton Journal

CBRE moving Kitchener office to Innovation District

CBRE Canada is transforming its offices across the country, so it seems only fitting the firm is moving into a new office in a Kitchener neighbourhood also undergoing a radical transformation. The firm’s Waterloo Region staff will move into an Allied Properties REIT (AP.UN-T)-owned building at 72 Victoria St. S., in the heart of Kitchener’s “Innovation District,” in October.

Property Biz Canada

PIRET acquires five properties, sells three

Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (AAR.UN-T) has purchased five properties and sold three other sites in deals worth more than $160 million. “Today’s announcements reflect significant further progress on our acquisition and capital recycling strategies,” PIRET president/CEO Kevan Gorrie said in a release. 

Property Biz Canada

Granite shakeup ‘significant transition’: Downey

At Granite REIT‘s (GRT.UN-T) annual meeting Thursday, the company welcomed a handful of new trustees – thanks, in large part, to the outcome of a hard fought proxy battle. Neil Downey, the real estate analyst at RBC Capital Markets, termed the election of three dissident directors and the non-support for three incumbents as “a significant transition.”

Financial Post – Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Choice Properties seeks to redevelop TO ‘eyesore’

Move over, Mirvish Village — there’s another mega-development in Toronto’s west end. A roughly 430,000-square-foot site could one day be transformed into a retail and residential development. “It’s prime for redevelopment,” said Kim Lee, vice-president of investment relations and business intelligence with Choice Properties REIT (CHP.UN-T), the developer hoping to give the space a major makeover. 

CBC

CIBC real estate analyst Alex Avery moving on

Today will be an unusual day for Alex Avery, a real estate analyst at CIBC World Markets, who for the first time in the past 12 years will not be reporting for duty. “There is a natural lifespan to an analyst,” said Avery. “And the REIT market is going to get a lot more interesting and with change comes opportunity.”

Financial Post

WeWork acquires construction management app provider

WeWork, the New York-based urban workspace designer and redeveloper that’s one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., has acquired Fieldlens, a six-year-old producer of construction management applications that allow for more efficient on-site communications. Fieldlens’ app helps make a jobsite environment more like Facebook or a social feed.

Building Design & Construction – TechCrunch

Montreal’s ‘Old Port of Tomorrow’ plan unveiled

The “Old Port of Tomorrow” will include a six-kilometre promenade, wide-open green spaces, steps leading down to the water in several places, two hotels and a glass lookout on top of Silo No. 5 – all to give Montrealers, and tourists, better access to the river. This master plan comes at a cost of $175 million for the public infrastructure alone.

Montreal Gazette

Feds commit funds toward Montreal transit project

Ottawa is committing $1.28 billion toward a major Montreal rail project that will connect the city to its suburbs and to its international airport, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday. At the outset, the funds will come in the form of a grant via Ottawa’s infrastructure-funding agreement with Quebec, Trudeau said.

Winnipeg Free Press – CBC – Montreal Gazette

Google’s ‘Tech Village’ could reach eight million SF

In a project that would dramatically reshape San Jose’s downtown, Google is in talks with the city to develop a massive tech campus containing at least six  million square feet of office space and housing on 245 acres. At those dimensions, the development could accommodate between 15,000 and 20,000 employees, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said.

CoStar Group

Featured Column

Three questions to answer when leasing retail space

Leasing commercial retail space can vary by development but there are some fundamentals that most tenants should consider while shopping around. For example, there are a number of items you can change about commercial space such as flooring, lighting, and wall colour to name a few. The parking lot is not one of them.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Car dealerships could soon be dinosaurs: Report

The time-honoured tradition of buying a shiny new car from a lot may no longer exist a decade from now, according to a new report by RethinkX, an independent think-tank in San Francisco. RethinkX‘s study says greater demand for electric cars, coupled with increased demand for ride-sharing, will eventually eliminate the need for dealerships altogether.

CBC – CoStar Group

Real Estate Companies

Starlight acquires Phoenix apartment community

Starlight U.S. Multi-Family (No. 5) Core Fund (STUS.A-X) announced it has waived all conditions precedent to acquire a class-A, garden-style, apartment community located at 20435 North 7th Street in Phoenix. The property consists of 274 apartment units and was constructed in 2012. The fund has agreed to purchase the Phoenix property unencumbered for approximately US$50.7 million. 

Canada Newswire

OSC settlement boosts Home Capital

Home Capital Group Inc. (HCG-T) relieved a major headache by agreeing to settle a dispute with securities regulators, but the mortgage lender’s funding woes are still a central concern as investors crave more tangible signs of a turnaround. Toronto-based Home Capital watched its share price surge 12.7 per cent higher on Thursday.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Financial Post – Reuters – Bloomberg

Retail

Retailers pushed to ramp up attractions

A customer at the Sport Chek on Robson Street points at a large monitor in the bike section – a gesture that makes the screen start showing videos of cycling.  The customer then points at a couple more places on the screen and starts to navigate the store’s selection of bikes for sale.

Business In Vancouver

U.S. mall tenants seek shorter leases

As if American malls didn’t have enough problems, retailers are looking to slash the duration of their leases. After more than a dozen bankruptcies this year contributed to thousands of store closures, visibility for the industry is so poor retailers are pushing for lease renewals as short as a year or two — down from five to 10 years.

Winnipeg Free Press – Saskatoon StarPhoenix – GlobeSt.com – GlobeSt.com

Restaurants and Eateries

Subway looks to end slump with tech upgrades

Subway Restaurants, facing one of the worst slumps in its history, is hoping to win back customers by losing its low-tech image. The sandwich chain is introducing touch-screen ordering kiosks and a new mobile app — a bid to catch up with places like Panera Bread Co., which have credited technology with helping fuel sales. Subway is even testing dedicated pickup areas for mobile orders, shaking up the five-decade-old format of its restaurants.

Bloomberg

New Development

Gateway inks deal for Sudbury casino

Gateway Casinos & Entertainment announced it has signed a deal with Dario Zulich’s True North Strong to put a casino on The Kingsway in Sudbury as part of the proposed event centre. Gateway said it plans to build a premier casino and entertainment property in a project expected to cost $60 million.

Sudbury.com

Sports Venues

Ex-Sens owner, Black Sheep to build athletics centre

A $20-million sports centre to help train some of Canada’s most promising athletes will be built in Eastern Ottawa by 2019. The 65,000-square-foot, multi-staged development — headed by architect Douglas Cardinal, Ottawa developer and former Ottawa Senators owner Bruce Firestone, and Black Sheep Developments — will feature Tumblers Gymnastics as the anchor tenant.

Ottawa Citizen – Ottawa Business Journal

Detroit’s new arena aims to be the best

Olympia Entertainment president Tom Wilson travelled throughout North America, visiting NHL arenas to take the best ideas from them for the Motor City. He also took a look at how the roof of a hockey arena in Russia during the 2014 Winter Olympics was lit up with cool displays.

Winnipeg Free Press

Stadiums of the future

With its own dedicated fromagerie, microbrewery and Michelin-star restaurant, it might be easy to forget you have come to watch the football when you are reclining in one of the premium lounges of Tottenham Hotspur’s new $1.27 billion Cdn stadium. The 61,000-seat behemoth will feature the longest bar in the country, heated seats with built-in USB ports.

The Guardian

Technology

Altus Group simplifies project management

Altus Group Limited (AIF-T), a leading provider of independent advisory services, software and data solutions to the global commercial real estate  industry, has launched version 7.7 of ARGUS Developer. Developer 7.7 is a comprehensive single platform to model, forecast, manage, analyze and report on development project costs and cash flows from inception to delivery. 

Marketwired

Other

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