Slate Office REIT acquires Dream office properties

Slate Office REIT acquires Dream office properties

Slate Office REIT (SOT.UN-T), a leading owner of office properties in Canada, announced it has agreed to acquire three office properties located in the Greater Toronto Area and Fredericton for an aggregate purchase price of $165 million. The REIT will be acquiring West Metro Corporate Centre in Etobicoke and 250 King Street and 460 Two Nations Crossing in Fredericton.

Marketwired – Marketwired – Marketwired

Conwest scores big with East Vancouver project

Developer Conwest Group of Companies left money on the table, but COO Ben Taddei has few regrets about the risk taken with the $14.5 million purchase of an old industrial site in East Vancouver three years ago. This week, as city and company officials symbolically broke ground on the mixed-use Ironworks project, half of the floor space had already sold.

Business In Vancouver – Vancouver Sun

CBRE transforming offices to WELL Building Standard

CBRE Canada has transformed eight of its offices and is responsible for four of the country’s first 10 WELL Building Standard-registered sites: Vancouver, Toronto West, downtown Toronto head office and, now, Toronto North.

Property Biz Canada

Luciano D’Iorio joins C&W amid Montreal buzz

The Montreal market is growing for the first time that Cushman & Wakefield’s new managing director of Quebec operations can remember. “It’s an exciting time in the city,” says Luciano D’Iorio, who joined Cushman & Wakefield in February after a career as a partner at Terramont Real Estate Services in Montreal.

Property Biz Canada

Little guys hurt in downtown Halifax megaproject

Lisa Bugden points out the window of her corner office atop the Neptune Theatre to the massive, dusty, tarp-strewn development across the street. The Nova Centre, a sprawling full-block retail, office and convention complex, began construction in 2013 with an anticipated opening date of January of 2016 – but that has been repeatedly pushed back, most recently to next December.

Globe and Mail

Growth-fee lawsuit separates Winnipeg, developers

The legal battle over growth fees has cast a new chill on the already frosty relationship between developers and the City of Winnipeg. A working group that was supposed to determine where the fees would be applied in the future is on hold because of the legal challenge against the new city revenue-generating mechanism.

CBC

Outlet Collection Winnipeg opening May 3

Central Canada’s only dedicated outlet shopping centre will celebrate its public grand opening on May 3. Outlet Collection Winnipeg will feature 400,000 square feet of retail space and as many as 100 retailers.

Canada Newswire

Mayor’s executive committee approves Scarborough subway plan

With no certainty on funding from other levels of government or certainty on costs, Mayor John Tory’s executive committee supported moving ahead with a one-stop subway extension in Scarborough Wednesday. Critics called the plan estimated to cost at least $3.35 billion an “albatross.”

Toronto Star – Toronto Star

Calgary eyes infrastructure projects

A significant pool of money, created by finding savings and dipping into reserves, will be used to fund “important, urgent” infrastructure projects across Calgary, city council decided Monday. Council unanimously voted to approve, in principle, a confidential list of previously unfunded infrastructure projects using a fund Coun. Ward Sutherland said is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Calgary Herald

Iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel goes dark for facelift

The word “grand” matched few hotels in the world better than New York City’s Waldorf Astoria, but this bastion of gilded splendor is now closing for two to three years for a transformative makeover. The last guests checked out last week after enjoying the rich Art Deco style of the old Waldorf one last time.

Halifax ChronicleHerald – The Real Deal Magazine – New York Post

Williams-Sonoma invites you to spend the night

Inside a New York warehouse that has been converted to office and design space are the seeds of a new type of collaboration between the hospitality and retailing industries. There, West Elm, a division of Williams-Sonoma that sells modern furniture and accessories online and in nearly 90 stores nationwide, has created model hotel rooms.

Toronto Star

How to save a dying mall

The Hudson Valley Mall, nestled on a picturesque hilltop in Kingston, N.Y., feels empty inside. Until recently, the 765,000-square-foot structure was best known for its infamous past as the scene of a Columbine-inspired shooting in 2005, when a local gunman fired off 60 rounds from an assault rifle.

Bloomberg

Multi-tenant infill industrial unicorn of investment?

Multi-tenant industrial real estate is hot, especially in metropolitan infill markets. Yet, while the product type is enjoying the limelight, not all properties are worth the chase. Demand is especially high for multi-tenant industrial partly due to the rise of e-commerce and last-mile delivery.

CP Executive

Net buyers will rule in Americas this year: Survey

With Europeans leading the way, 67 peer cent of investors in Americas commercial real estate intend to be net buyers this year. That’s among the key findings of the CBRE Americas Investor Intentions Survey 2017, issued Tuesday. 

GlobeSt.com – Reuters

Sternlicht: Animal spirits revived under Trump

VIDEO: Barry Sternlicht, Starwood Capital chairman & CEO, talks about business optimism growing on hopes of deregulation, tax reform and rate hikes.

CNBC

Featured Column

Slower but sustained growth in Saskatoon

With a certain weaker economy currently in play, the City of Saskatoon has released their newest projections for growth in Saskatchewan’s largest urban municipality.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Opinion: Saskatchewan’s Crown land should be retained

There are no quick fixes, but every piece of Crown land used to grow livestock or crops represents an opportunity for more enlightened government policy to be enacted one day. Last week we learned the province is now using a private auction company to sell parcels of Crown land to the highest bidders, regardless of whether they are Saskatchewan residents.

Regina Leader-Post

Real Estate Companies

Goldman Sachs backing Blackstone’s Willis Tower remake

Goldman Sachs & Co. is preparing to sell bonds backing Blackstone Group’s planned $500-million US renovation of Chicago’s Willis Tower, one of the world’s tallest and most recognizable buildings. Blackstone Group (BX-N) acquired the property in June 2015 for $1.3 billion or about $337 per square foot from The Moinian Group. 

CoStar Group

The human cost of China’s zombie firms

Mr. and Mrs. Chen, both in their late 50s, opened a small bakery three years ago after they quit the nearby state-owned steel plant where they had worked for three decades. There may be a future in running a bun shop, but not at a dying state-run behemoth.

Business In Vancouver

Airbnb CEO offers property hosts bigger role in company

Airbnb, the leading online marketplace for short-term lodging, Tuesday invited some of the owners of properties listed on its service, known as hosts, to attend executive board meetings and offered them more direct contact with its chief executive, in an attempt to give them a greater say in how it is run.

Reuters

Windsor refuses to sell parking garage

The majority of spaces at the Pelissier Street parking garage are taken up by city workers with a “sweetheart deal,” according to the chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association. City council voted Monday night against considering an offer to buy the money-losing property. 

CBC – Windsor Star

Windsor’s wrecking ball aimed at commercial properties

Owners of dilapidated vacant commercial properties could soon be forced to demolish their buildings, now that Windsor city councillors agreed to expand an urban blight program. Council agreed to look at other types of buildings, beyond residential. Staff will now review the blight mitigation strategy, which has resulted in the demolition of 43 rundown residential buildings.

CBC

REOC Financial Reports

Latest reports:

* Imvescor Restaurant Group Inc., (IRG-T), Canada Newswire 

* Starlight U.S. Multi-Family (No. 5) Core Fund, (STUS.A-X), Canada Newswire 

REIT Financial Reports

Latest reports:

* Agellan Commercial REIT, (ACR.UN-T), Business Wire

* American Hotel Income Properties REIT, (AAR.UN-T), Marketwired 

* Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust, (AAR.UN-T), Marketwired 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Partners announces two new pad developments

Partners Real Estate Investment Trust (PAR.UN-T) announced it is proceeding with the development of two new pad sites in its portfolio. Mariner Square is a nine-year-old 100,000-square-foot retail property in Campbell River, B.C. Place Desormeaux is a 250,000-square-foot enclosed shopping centre in the community of Longueuil, Que. The investment in both properties total $3 million.

Marketwired

Japan’s REITs market losing steam

Neil Slater, Japan chief executive officer at Standard Life Investments, discusses the Japanese REIT market, the impact of the BOJ’s REIT purchases on markets and his outlook for the economy. He speaks to Bloomberg’s Shery Ahn on “Bloomberg Markets” from the APIC Japan Summit in Tokyo.

Bloomberg

U.K. student housing REIT invests in central London asset

GCP Student Living is investing $221 million Cdn in a central London asset. The U.K. REIT, which launched in 2013, has exchanged contracts to buy Woburn Place in London’s Bloomsbury. The asset is being sold by Unite Students, with completion of the deal expected next month.

IPE Real Estate

Make a killing with Killam Apartment REIT

Killam Apartment REIT (KMP.UN-T) is a very solid holding for income investors looking to increase the average yields of their portfolios. The dividend currently yields a bountiful 4.75 per cent and is expected to grow by leaps and bounds over the long term. Killam is a residential REIT that owns, develops, and manages apartments mostly in Atlantic Canada. 

Motley Fool

Retail

CF Market Mall announces new retailers

Cadillac Fairview and co-owner Ivanhoé Cambridge announced three new retailers will be joining CF Market Mall in Calgary. Popular fashion retailers Sporting Life and Zara will debut at CF Market Mall in 2017. In 2018, Saks OFF 5TH will also open a new store at CF Market Mall.

Canada Newswire

Fluevog Shoes coming to Edmonton

An exciting fashion first lurks behind the white plastic hoarding at 10330 Whyte Ave. as John Fluevog Shoes steps out in Edmonton. The long-anticipated arrival is tentatively scheduled for March 25, according to publicists for the popular shoe brand, which got its start in Vancouver in 1970. 

Edmonton Journal

Target CEO faces uncertain future

When Target (TGT-N) reported lower-than-expected 2016 sales and earnings, analysts and investors were disappointed. It will be a long wait until the company regains momentum. When chairman and CEO Brian Cornell joined the company in 2014, he faced a disaster in Canada and had to close all 133 stores and take a major hit for the company. 

Forbes – Motley Fool

Sports Venues

AHL looks to score with Yardmen Arena reno

With an eye to providing a home for the American Hockey League’s new Belleville Senators franchise, the city of Belleville, Ont., is renovating and expanding its 39-year-old Yardmen Arena. The fast-track project, being undertaken by the team of Ball Construction Ltd. and Architecture49, will in part expand seating to a minimum capacity of 4,400.

Daily Commercial News

Renovation and Restoration

Preservation group tries to save Liberty Village buildings

Preservationist groups are opposing redevelopment plans for a portion of Liberty Village, hoping to save what they say are historic and “precious” buildings from the the area’s industrial past. The city is considering a proposal to demolish a group of buildings along Liberty Street to make way for a 10-storey office complex.   

CBC

Infrastructure

Keeyask dam cost estimate balloons

The red ink continues to spill from Manitoba Hydro as the Crown corporation has revised its cost estimate and timeline for completing the Keeyask dam project, saying it will cost $2.2 billion more than a 2014 estimate. Hydro now estimates the final price to finish the work will be $8.7 billion, and it will take 21 months longer than originally anticipated.

CBC – Winnipeg Free Press

Ottawa International Airport honoured

The Ottawa International Airport has been recognized by an international trade association being named among the best airports in North America. The Ottawa Airport in a three-way tie for second place with El Paso and Tampa airports in the category of best airport in North America.

Ottawa Citizen

Skyxe Saskatoon Airport named North America’s best

Skyxe Saskatoon Airport was named the best airport in North America in 2016 by Airport Council International (ACI) in the under two-million passenger category. “After receiving the 2015 ACI award for most improved airport in North America, Skyxe has continued to focus on guests,” Stephen Maybury, president and CEO of the Saskatoon Airport Authority (SAA), said in a release.

Global News

Sustainability

Brookfield to take control of SunEdison units

Brookfield Asset Management Inc (BAM.A-T) said Tuesday it would buy one of the two “yieldcos” of bankrupt U.S. solar company SunEdison Inc and take a 51 per cent stake in the other, for a total of about $2.5 billion US. Brookfield Asset Management is Canada’s largest alternative-asset manager.

Reuters – Winnipeg Free Press

Gaz Metro looks south for M&A targets

Gaz Metro Inc. became the latest Canadian energy company to look south for new sources of revenue after snapping up Standard Solar Inc. to tap into the growing U.S. renewable market. Standard Solar said its acquisition by the Montreal natural gas distributor will speed up its growth in distributed generation and energy storage markets. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Bloomberg

TO renovation project lesson in building a green future

If you’re building a more sustainable future, it’s good to hold onto the past – and to bring warm clothes. These are the lessons of a new building project by the environmental non-profit Evergreen, a renovation of a 53,000-square-foot structure at the Brick Works facility in Toronto.

Globe and Mail

Land Conservancy free of creditor protection

The Land Conservancy of B.C. has climbed out of creditor protection and is standing on its own financial feet after more than three years. The 20-year-old Victoria-based, non-profit organization has sold and transferred properties and seen loans forgiven by supporters to achieve its goal. 

Victoria Times Colonist

Human Resources

Hong Kong most expensive Asian city to build anything in

Hong Kong, already the world’s least affordable urban centre to live and work in, is also the costliest Asian city to get anything built, due to its severe shortage of construction labour, according to a survey by global design and architecture consultancy Arcadis.

Business In Vancouver

Technology

CloseCommute program could ease traffic woes: Developer

Bruce Batchelor says he has honed a concept that could get between 8,200 and 16,400 commuting vehicles — or about five to 10 per cent of the total — off the road within two years in Greater Victoria. Batchelor said CloseCommute Systems involves “a change of mind, a change of attitude, a change of expectation amongst employers.” 

Victoria Times Colonist

Other