Downtown Vancouver hotel sold to Hong Kong JV

Downtown Vancouver hotel sold to Hong Kong JV

A deal has been struck to sell the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, which has been in downtown Vancouver since 1927 and in 2011 received a $120-million restoration. Vancouver-based Delta Land Development Ltd., is selling the hotel to Able Shine Enterprises and Magnificent Hotel Investments for $145 million, but it will continue to be managed by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts.

Vancouver Sun – Business in Vancouver

CRE owners prefer open Portage & Main

A spokeswoman for one of the building owners at the corner of Portage and Main said a revitalized intersection can co-exist with a redeveloped underground concourse. Rosanne Hill is managing director of Harvard Developments Inc., which owns and manages the 33-storey office tower originally known as TD Centre.

Winnipeg Free Press

Canada seen as safe haven in uncertain times

Canada remains a relatively stable investment market even as geopolitical and economic uncertainty in many parts of the world, combined with dramatic technological advances, make for a rapidly changing globe. “Skittish capital is being driven to Canada,” CBRE Canada executive vice-president and executive managing director Paul Morassutti said.

Property Biz Canada

Uneasy times for investment: RealCapital execs

While four senior banking, insurance and capital market executives generally believe Canada should emerge “relatively unscathed” from the uncertainty of what’s to come in the United States and Europe this year, it seems it’s still a somewhat uneasy investment environment.

Property Biz Canada

Toronto fintech firm eyes global expansion

Sensibill Inc., a Toronto-based startup that offers digital receipt technology for banks, has raised $17.3 million to supercharge its global expansion and dig deeper into artificial intelligence. It’s one of the largest series A early-stage financing rounds for a Canadian technology startup.

Globe and Mail

Calgary must look beyond oil: Pittsburgh mayor

The mayor who presided over Pittsburgh’s transformation from declining steel town to a vibrant technology hub says Calgary, too, has the potential to become a hot spot for innovation and knowledge-based job growth. But Tom Murphy said Calgarians must first acknowledge the oil industry has changed.

Calgary Herald

YYC Storage gives customers their space

Torey Celinskis and Trevor Loose, who started their careers in the financial sector, decided one day over coffee they should start their own business. After studying the needs of Calgarians, particularly those living in the growing condo/apartment market, the friends launched YYC Storage, a business that provides same-day, on-demand pickup and drop-off to its storage facility.

Calgary Herald

Saskatchewan auctioning off Crown land

Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture has been selling off Crown lands regularly each year for decades, but this time it’s trying something new — an online auction. Starting Wednesday, the ministry put about 80 parcels of land on the auction block on Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers’ website. 

Regina Leader-Post – Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Probing Anbang’s purchase of seniors care provider

B.C.’s health ministry has granted the licences needed for the province’s largest provider of seniors care to be acquired by China’s Anbang Insurance Group, in a deal believed to be worth more than $1 billion. The process began just over a week ago when Ottawa approved the transaction for Anbang to buy Vancouver-based Retirement Concepts.

Vancouver Province

Canada losing out on foreign online retail sales

Canada is losing more than a billion dollars a year in overlooked taxes and duties on goods consumers buy online from foreign retailers, according to a new study by Copenhagen Economics, which found a broad discrepancy in how customs treats packages imported using postal carriers and those transported via express services such as UPS or Federal Express. 

Financial Post

HBC’s bid for Macy’s stumbles: Sources

Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC-T), owner of the Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue retail chains, has yet to line up equity financing for a bid for Macy’s Inc. (M-N), more than a month after approaching its U.S. peer, sources said. Those challenges are a blow to the ambitions of majority owner and executive chairman Richard Baker.

Reuters

Sport Chek opens first women’s-only store

National sportswear and sporting goods chain Sport Chek has opened a first-of-its kind concept store in Calgary’s CF Chinook Centre it hopes will boost the brand’s appeal among female fitness enthusiasts. Sport Chek Women is a 16,000-square-foot store designed by an all-female team of Sport Chek staff.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Number of distressed U.S. retailers soars

The number of U.S. retailers ranked at the most-distressed level of the credit-rating spectrum has more than tripled since the Great Recession of 2008-09 and is heading toward record levels in the next five years, Moody’s Investors Service said Monday. The rating agency is the latest to weigh in on the state of the sector.

MarketWatch

Wal-Mart and Target need software talent

Once, major retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT-N) and Target (TGT-N) competed for cashiers and shop floor staff paid barely above the minimum wage. That was before automated checkouts replaced cashiers and Amazon (AMZN-Q) shifted industry competition from neighbourhood stores to online stores. 

Forbes

CRE lending ended 2016 on strong note

Although overall lending volumes for the fourth quarter of 2016 were seven per cent lower compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, commercial real estate loan originations for the full year 2016 overall are expected to be just one per cent lower than 2015, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations.

CoStar Group

Featured Column

What’s really going on in the Saskatoon office market?

Just as it is not possible to generalize about the state of any commercial real estate market, we need to provide some detail to accurately illustrate what’s going on in the Saskatoon office market.

Read more

Real Estate Companies

Investors want to make Windsor parking garage an attraction

A group of investors wants to buy the Pelissier Street parking garage and make a number of investments in the structure, including boosting retail on the main floor and turning the upper deck into an event space. Mayor Drew Dilkens, however, already told the would-be buyers he’s not interested in selling the garage.

Windsor Star – Windsor Star

Winners and losers in Taj Mahal casino sale

The sale of Trump Taj Mahal casino to Hard Rock International has left some winners and losers in Atlantic City. The winners included a union whose members were willing to lose their own jobs to stand up to Taj owner and billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Montreal Gazette

REOC Financial Reports

Latest reports:

* Timbercreek Financial, (TF-T), Marketwired 

REIT Financial Reports

Latest reports:

* Artis REIT, (AX.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* City Office REIT, (CIO-N), PR Newswire 

* Granite REIT, (GRT.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

* NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT, (NWH.UN-T), Canada Newswire 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

U.S. REITs benefit from changes in consumer demand

Well-located U.S. malls and shopping centres with the right product mix have benefited from an enormous shift in consumer demand over the past few years, while lower-quality assets with undifferentiated retail offerings are becoming obsolete. The REIT sector is well-positioned for this shift, having already pivoted toward higher levels of quality.

CP Executive – CP Executive

PROREIT closes on Quebec acquisition

PRO Real Estate Investment Trust (PRV.UN-X) has closed its previously announced acquisition of a 50 per cent undivided interest in a Drummondville, Qué., property for a purchase price of $3.0 million. The property is a freestanding single-tenant industrial property totalling 171,119 square feet of gross leasable area on 10.75 acres of land.

Marketwired

Retail

David Bensadoun appointed CEO of ALDO Group

ALDO Group Inc. announced David Bensadoun – the eldest son of company founder Aldo Bensadoun – has been appointed chief executive officer, reporting to the Chairman of the Board effective April 3. David Bensadoun joined the company in 1995 as a project manager and rose through the ranks to his most recent role as president of ALDO Group North America (AGNA). 

Canada Newswire

Peekaboo Beans announces U.S. expansion

Peekaboo Beans Inc. (BEAN-X), a direct-sales retailer of children’s apparel, today announced plans to expand its independent sales network or “Stylists” into the U.S., along with continued strategic growth in Canada. It is anticipated Peekaboo Beans will initially launch in Fall 2017 in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.

Canada Newswire

Costco misses second-quarter estimates

Costco Wholesale Corp.’s (COST-Q) same-store sales in Canada outpaced growth in all of the warehouse retailer’s other divisions in the second quarter, even as the company’s overall results fell short of market expectations Thursday. “Fresh food drives the business,” CFO Richard Galanti told analysts on a conference call after markets closed. 

Financial Post – Bloomberg – Reuters – Toronto Star

Restaurants and Eateries

McDonald’s lays out plan to regain customers

McDonald’s Corp. (MCD-N) acknowledged Wednesday it lost 500 million customer transactions in the United States since 2012 and laid out its plans to get more people back into its restaurants – including by letting them order and pay on their mobile phones by the end of the year. 

Globe and Mail

Infrastructure

Rent out residential parking spaces: UBC

You know the drill. Drive into Vancouver’s West End and try to find a parking space so you can make that dinner date on Robson Street. A new University of B.C. study is promoting the idea of renting out unused residential parking to help alleviate chronic parking shortages in the city’s West End.

Vancouver Sun – CBC

Quebec earmarks funds for roadwork

Quebec Transport minister Laurent Lessard announced Friday the province will spend $4.6 billion on roadwork over the next two years, more than a quarter of it in the Montreal area. Nearly half of the funding — $2.1 billion — will be spent on Transport Quebec projects and $1.4 billion of that will be devoted to sites in the Montreal area.

Montreal Gazette

Other

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