With Amazon signed, Riverbend biz park 100% leased

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial  •  Metro Vancouver

Oxford Properties Group’s Riverbend Business Park – six buildings and 1.35 million square feet of industrial space – is fully leased. Amazon‘s lease of a two-storey, 707,000-square-foot fulfillment centre at the Burnaby site rounds out occupancy at the decade-long development.

Meta to build engineering hub in Toronto

Commercial  •  CP 24  •  Toronto Star  •  Global News

Meta Platforms — parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — announced plans to build a Canadian engineering hub in Toronto. Many employees will be housed in a new downtown Toronto space larger than Meta’s current home in the MaRS Discovery District.

Emergia acquires stake in six Ontario retail plazas

RENX  Commercial  •  Retail  •  Ontario

Montreal-based real estate operating company Emergia Inc. (EMER-CN) has closed on a 31 per cent ownership position of six retail plazas in six Ontario cities for $40.69 million as it continues to adjust its asset allocation mix.

B.C. hotel sector piquing investor interest

Commercial  •  Business In Vancouver

Toward the end of the pandemic, there was a surge in investor interest to buy hotels in B.C. Colliers International data show 39 hotel transactions valued at more than $1 million in 2021, the highest number in at least a decade.

Developer going out on a high with Leaside project

Commercial  •  Daily Commercial News  •  SustainableBiz

Veteran Toronto developer Charles Goldsmith figures Toronto’s Leaside Innovation Centre will be the last full project of his long career. However, the 73-year-old is going out full of enthusiasm and delivering a project laden with innovative features.

Bloor Street to re-emerge as luxury thoroughfare

Commercial  •  Retail Insider

Several brokers say that the temporary vacated status of Toronto’s Bloor Street West will change as leases are signed by luxury and big-name brands. Also, several major redevelopments will transform part of the stretch once known as the ‘Mink Mile.’

The Industrial Real Estate Show › Podcast: Geoff Kasselman on how tech is changing industrial real estate

Chad Griffiths: Partner, NAI Commercial

Construction begins on Ontario Line subway in Toronto

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Toronto Star  •  Urban Toronto

The province has broken ground on its new subway line in Toronto. The 14-stop, 15-kilometre Ontario Line will begin near Ontario Place in southwest Toronto, travel through the downtown core and end north at the Ontario Science Centre.

Co-working spaces take off in small Canadian towns

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail

Shane Austin, co-founder of Okanagan coLab in Kelowna, B.C., said his business has returned to more normal levels after membership dipped by 30 per cent at the start of the pandemic and he expects his business will continue to grow.

Gaming giant Unity opens new offices in Calgary

Commercial  •  Calgary Herald

One of Canada’s largest software firms has set up shop in downtown Calgary with a modern take on office space geared toward incubating creativity. Unity Technologies is leasing 25,000 square feet for the Innovation Centre for Digital Transformation in Brookfield Place.

UDI sets sights on downtown Edmonton recovery

Commercial  •  Edmonton Journal

The Urban Development Institute (UDI), a group representing hundreds of companies involved in land development in and around Edmonton, is attempting to call people back downtown and focus on its growth after COVID-19 put much of the progress on hold.

Manulife to open Canadian offices to staff April 25

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Vancouver Sun

Canadian life insurer Manulife Financial (MFC-T) said Tuesday employees can return to its offices from April 25 regardless of vaccination status. Manulife has asked staffers to return under a hybrid model with certain days of the week designated for remote work.

Canary Wharf proposes $819M London lab project

Commercial  •  Financial Times  •  IPE Real Assets

Canary Wharf Group is partnering with Kadans Science Partner to develop a $819-million Cdn, 22-storey, 750,000-square-foot block split between wet labs and offices, which it hopes will ultimately be the anchor for a thriving life sciences cluster in East London.

Demand for U.S. office space half of pre-COVID levels

Commercial  •  Business Wire

Demand for office space closed out the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic down 47.1 per cent from February 2020, the last month prior to the declaration of the pandemic, according to the VTS Office Demand Index.

WeWork names CEO Mathrani as chairman

Commercial  •  Saltwire  •  MarketWatch

WeWork Inc. on Tuesday named CEO Sandeep Mathrani chairman of the office sharing company, months after Marcelo Claure vacated the role. Earlier in his career, Mathrani was CEO of GGP and the retail group of parent company Brookfield Property Partners.

Bills reach agreement on new $1.4B NFL stadium

Commercial  •  REBUSINESS  •  Bisnow

The Buffalo Bills have reached an agreement with New York State and Erie County for a new $1.4 billion football stadium in Orchard Park, a southeast suburb of Buffalo that is also home to the team’s current arena, Highmark Stadium.

Ontario raises foreign-buyers tax to 20%

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Toronto Star  •  Ontario Newsroom

Queen’s Park has increased the tax for foreign homebuyers to 20 per cent from 15 per cent and has closed a loophole that allowed foreign students and workers to get a tax rebate on real estate purchases to crack down on speculation.

Ont. residential building permits jumped 15% in 2021

Residential  •  REMI Network

For the second consecutive year, Ontario saw a significant increase in residential building permits according to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. More than 122,000 permits were issued across the province in 2021, a 15 per cent year-over-year increase.

Rising rates cooling Ontario housing market: BMO

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  CBC

The cooling in some parts of Ontario’s real estate market is restraining buyers and flummoxing sellers. Benjamin Reitzes, Bank of Montreal’s macro-economic strategist for Canada, cautions rising interest rates will continue to dampen the enthusiasm around housing.

Investors missing $10M+ following Epic Alliance’s collapse

Residential  •  CBC

Earlier this month, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Alison Rothery assigned accounting firm Ernst and Young to investigate what happened to the estimated $10 million to $20 million 120 investors placed with bankrupt Saskatoon real estate investment firm Epic Alliance.