Vancouver’s boom spurs Victoria commercial renaissance

Vancouver’s boom spurs Victoria commercial renaissance

Victoria’s Upper Fort Street is going through a commercial renaissance that local businesspeople and real estate experts say is linked to the skyrocketing cost of commercial and residential real estate in Metro Vancouver.  Located on the edge of Victoria’s downtown core, upper Fort Street had long been associated more with antique auction houses and dealers than with interesting places to eat and shop.

Vancouver Sun

Bosa has big plans for Victoria bus depot

Plans to redevelop Victoria’s downtown bus terminal include an expanded public garden running from Government to Douglas streets and a high-end, long-term rental building designed to complement the historic Fairmont Empress Hotel. Conceptual plans for the project, spearheaded by hotel owner Nat Bosa, a Vancouver developer, are being presented to nearby community groups.

Victoria Times Colonist

Dalfen adds bench strength, continues deal-making

The pace of U.S. deal-making at Dalfen America Corp. is so brisk these days the best way to keep abreast of the news is to talk directly to company president Sean Dalfen. “We closed yesterday on a $108-million deal of 23 buildings and a bunch of land in Cinncinati, Columbus and Cleveland,” he said in a recent interview.

Property Biz Canada

Loft vibe comes to office towers

An office tower above Toronto’s Eaton Centre downtown seems an unlikely location to attract Web-based companies whose employees prefer funky, brick and beam workspaces. Cadillac Fairview Corp. Ltd. built 250 Yonge Street in the 1980s, the era of corporate ladder climbing and dressing for success, when tenants demanded marble lobbies and plush carpeted floors.

Globe and Mail

Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel completes renovation

The $120 million renovation of the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel is now complete, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts announced this week. The 1,372-key hotel located in the heart of downtown Toronto underwent a full makeover of all guestrooms and suites, as well as an upgrade of its meeting and event space.

CP Executive

Transforming the former Kingsmill’s department store

Fanshawe College in London, Ont. is transforming the former Kingsmill’s department store building into a dynamic learning centre for tourism, hospitality and information technology programs. Fanshawe College in London, Ont. is transforming the former Kingsmill’s department store building into a dynamic learning centre for tourism, hospitality and information technology programs.

Daily Commercial News

Marine Gateway opens on top of Vancouver’s Canada Line

Vancouver’s Marine Gateway had its official opening on April 7, making the mixed-use project the first major new development directly integrated with the Canada Line. Marine Gateway is a dense project that’s right on the transit station,” said Andrew Grant, president of developer PCI Developments Corp.

Property Biz Canada

Shannon Park redevelopment taking shape

An ambitious plan to redevelop the Dartmouth waterfront at Shannon Park will include much of the design elements sought by the Millbrook First Nation. Millbrook Chief Bob Gloade said band representatives have met with officials from the Canada Lands Company, which now owns Shannon Park, to discuss the First Nation’s ideas.

The Chronicle Herald – CBC.ca

Weston family bringing Italy’s Eataly to Canada

Eataly, the international Italian food emporium that blurs the line between supermarket and restaurant, will open its first Canadian store in Toronto next year in partnership with the Weston family.  Oscar Farinetti, Eataly’s founder, co-owner and chairman, said a location in central Toronto had been found and that the Westons would have 52 per cent of the real estate and retail project.

Globe and Mail

McDonald’s invests big in ‘Restaurant of the Future’

Toronto Star

A new era in industrial real estate

Canada’s major industrial real estate markets – Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal – entered a new era of growth in 2015 and are set to have another banner year, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s A New Era in Industrial Real Estate. The report points out Canada’s industrial markets, including Calgary’s, were steadily gaining traction through 2014 and 2015.

Marketwired

Trez Capital partners with Forman Capital

Trez Capital Group LP  announced a further expansion of its lending platform into the U.S. via a new partnership with Forman Capital LP, and the launch of Trez Forman Capital Group LP. Forman’s proficiency in the CRE bridge, mezzanine, and equity financing markets in the U.S. is seen as a complement to Trez’s Canadian real estate lending platform.

Canada Newswire

In cities Dubai and Jeddah, there’s a race to the sky

Toronto Star

MSCI: big year for global property funds

The latest IPD Global Quarterly Property Fund Index measured an increase to 13.5 percent in fourth quarter 2015, the highest since 2011.  Global property funds had a good run in 2015, the likes of which haven’t been seen in four years. MSCI Inc. recently released the IPD Global Quarterly Property Fund Index, and the results were more than optimistic.

CP Executive

Global real estate boom to end: Grosvenor

A major U.K. landlord warned Tuesday that the boom in global real estate is coming to an end.  London-based Grosvenor Group, which manages investments on behalf of the Duke of Westminster, said in its annual report that years of rising property values could be set to reverse.

Wall St. Journal

Market Trends and Research

Investors in Canada’s bond market just got a major wakeup call

Canadian bond investors who thought they had about 30 days before the $300 million they lent insurer Great West Lifeco Inc. would be paid back came to work Monday to find it might take another 30 years instead. Great West on April 15 opted not to exercise an option to payback one of its U.S. dollar bonds early.

Financial Post

Twenty upcoming residential and transportation projects

The accompanying table shows 20 of the largest upcoming high-rise residential and transportation construction projects in Canada. Shopping centers, hotels, office buildings, medical buildings, educational buildings, government buildings, industrial projects, oil and gas projects, and electric power and telecommunications projects will all be covered on a rotating basis.

Daily Commercial News

U.S. industrial absorption up in Q1

U.S. industrial markets absorbed nearly 58 million square feet of space in the first quarter of 2016, up 9.3 per cent from the first quarter a year ago, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s first-quarter industrial report. This marked 24 consecutive quarters of positive net occupancy gains for the sector, placing the current expansion among the longest on record.

Globest.com

Real Estate Companies

Caisse de depot changes organizational model

The second-largest pension fund manager in Canada, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, is making changes to the organization’s structure and leadership as the institutional investor faces a future marked by higher volatility and slower growth. 

Montreal Gazette – Canada Newswire

Firm Capital closes bought deal financing

Firm Capital Mortgage Investment Corporation (FC-T) announced it has closed its previously announced bought deal prospectus offering of 1,710,000 common shares at a price of $12.90 per offered share. The offered shares were listed and posted for trading on the TSX at the opening of trading Tuesday.

Canada Newswire

Brookfield to issue preferred shares

Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a subsidiary of Brookfield Property Partners (BPY.UN-T), announced it has agreed to issue to a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc., CIBC Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank, for distribution to the public, six million cumulative minimum rate reset class-AAA preference shares, Series CC.

Marketwired

REOC Financial Reports

	REITs & REOCs – First-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their reports that will be updated quarterly. First-quarter results are now arriving. Canadian REITs & REOCs – First-quarter 2016 report

 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Dream Office underpriced

Dream Office Real Estate Investment Trust (D.UN-T) is a company many investors have been concerned about, and for good reason. In February, the company was forced to cut its dividend by approximately 33 per cent from $0.1867 per share to $0.125. Ultimately, the company was paying out $2.24 in dividends, while its 2015 funds from operations were $2.83.

Motley Fool

True North Commercial REIT files preliminary short form prospectus

True North Commercial REIT (TNT.UN-T)has filed the prospectus to maintain financial flexibility and to have the ability to offer the securities on an accelerated basis pursuant to the filing of prospectus supplements. The filing of the final short form base shelf prospectus will position the REIT to be able to react quickly to market opportunities to raise additional capital.

Canada Newswire

REIT and real estate financings show signs of comeback

It’s been one of the strangest dichotomies of these difficult markets. Despite persistently low interest rates and demand for securities with big yields, Canadian real estate investment trusts have been stuck in the dumps. Until now. For the first time in a year, REITS and real estate corporations are showing signs of a comeback.

Globe and Mail (requires subscription)

REITs playing leading role in development: Deloitte

Bob O’Brien, partner and U.S. real estate services leader at Deloitte,  said he is seeing an increase in development activity for apartment buildings, office buildings, hotels and distribution facilities. “REITs are playing a big role in development activity,” O’Brien said.

REIT.com

Retail

Sobeys appoints Beth Newlands Campbell to lead business unit

Sobeys Inc.(EMP.A-T) has appointed Beth Newlands Campbell as President of the company’s Atlantic / Ontario business unit.  An experienced grocery industry leader, Ms. Newlands Campbell has spent 30 years in progressively senior operations marketing, merchandising and strategic planning roles with Delhaize’s U.S.  operations most recently as President of Food Lion.

Canada Newswire

Metro reports second-quarter profit and sales up from year ago

Metro Inc. (TSX:MRU) said Wednesday its second-quarter profit was up more than 10 per cent compared with a year ago. The grocery store chain said it earned $124.9 million or 51 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended March 12 compared with $111.6 million or 43 cents per diluted share a year ago.

Montreal Gazette – Globe and Mail – Motley Fool

Whole Foods raising fears of cannibalization

An analysis of the locations selected for the first 365 by Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFM-Q) stores shows overlap with not just other grocers, but with Whole Foods Market Inc. itself, raising concerns about cannibalization and competition, according to Oppenheimer. The first of Whole Foods’ new concept stores is scheduled to open on May 25.

MarketWatch

Restaurants and Eateries

CaliBurger opening in Vancouver

It’s not In-N-Out, but it might be close enough. . . . CaliBurger, a California-inspired burger chain that has its roots in China, is opening a franchise in Vancouver next month. When the chain opened its first restaurant in Shanghai in 2012 it was seen as a clone of the popular California-based In-N-Out Burger.

Vancouver Sun

New Development

Biennial architectural exhibition shows Montreal’s changing face

At Place Desjardins, the biennial Montreal du Future exhibition brings together a collection of models that show some of the high-profile architectural, real estate and infrastructure projects under construction or in the planning stages. The exhibition, which starts today, is held every two years by BOMA-Québec.

Montreal Gazette

City of Regina committee considers Cathedral development proposal

A controversial development proposed for the Cathedral neighbourhood is the subject of a City of Regina planning commission meeting Wednesday.  Barbara Kahan is among those opposed to the four-storey, mixed commercial-residential building planned for the northwest corner of 13th Avenue and Elphinstone Street.

Regina Leader Post

In praise of ugly old buildings

Does Toronto need ugly buildings? The shabby and unfashionable, the weirdo huts and half-abandoned malls and rundown plazas. Could it be they actually serve a valuable purpose in the life and evolution of the city? It’s a question raised recently by the imminent demolition of a strip of stores near Yonge and Eglinton.

Toronto Star – TreeHugger

Resorts

Yas Island to open Warner Bros. themed destination in Abu Dhabi

Miral and Warner Bros. officially announced that a Warner Bros. themed destination is set to open in Abu Dhabi on Yas Island, one of the world’s leading business, leisure and entertainment destinations, the development will include the only Warner Bros. branded hotel alongside the immersive theme park.

Canada Newswire

Renovation and Restoration

Windsor post office getting major makeover

It’s  a stately and irreplaceable landmark. And now it’s one of two million-dollar transformations on one block of Sandwich Street in the heart of Windsor’s historic west side.The old post office is poised to become a café. There are hopes it will rejuvenate the commercial core of Sandwich.

Windsor Star

Infrastructure

Halifax’s terminal owner Halterm buys U.S. rival

The Chronicle Herald

Chinese engineers visit Ontario’s Ring of Fire to consider railway route

Toronto Star

International

China’s real estate conundrum: Big property bubble vs. ghost towns

The road from the center of this midsize city in China’s Hunan province to the new high-speed railway station in its suburbs is lined with newly built and, in some cases, half-completed high-rise buildings — along with billboards advertising high-end real estate.  The names and the slogans are alluring: “In the city, on the mountain, villa life,” says one. 

IBI Times

Human Resources

Energetic developer enjoyed building Victoria

Brian Martin, the man behind a major development proposal and owner of two Howard Johnson hotels on Vancouver Island, has died at 65. The builder and hotel owner left a huge impression in his business life. A Douglas Street project featuring two 12-storey buildings is in the works with 176 residential units and 26,000 square feet of commercial space.

Victoria Times Colonist

Target increases minimum wage: Sources

Discount retailer Target Corp. (TGT-N) has started raising employee wages to a minimum of $10 an hour, its second hike in a year, pressured by a competitive job market and labour groups calling for higher wages at retail chains, sources said. Target management has informed store managers, who in turn have started informing employees about the wage hike.

Reuters

Nordstrom cutting hundreds of jobs

Nordstrom (JWN-N) said Monday it was slashing 400 jobs at its corporate headquarters. The move comes two months after the department store chain reported a three per cent drop in comparable sales for its fourth quarter and forecast profit per share would fall 30% in the first half of this year. 

Business Insider

Other

Game of Thrones’ new palace based on architecture of Arthur Erickson

A new palace is coming to Season 6 of the Game of Thrones based on works by the late, great Canadian architect Arthur Erickson who designed over 500 buildings.  His designs include Vancouver’s Robson Square, Law Courts and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto and the Canadian Embassy in Washington.

National Post

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