Huge global players drive Canada’s data centre growth

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial, Technology  •  National, Toronto / GTA, Greater Montreal

Demand from cloud service providers and large technology companies was responsible for Toronto logging the second-highest data centre leasing activity in North America in 2020, according to CBRE’s latest North American data centre trends report.

Atria finds niche in downtown Oshawa, builds across GTA

RENX  Residential  •  Apartments, Condominiums, Homes  •  Ontario, Toronto / GTA

Gyan Chand Jain started developing in Toronto in 1969, and his sons Hans and Vipin founded Atria Development to continue a tradition of revitalizing communities by building new projects and repurposing existing structures.

The People Space › People Space: Cuthbert, Friedrichsen, Siddall on the move…

Don Wilcox: Managing Editor

Billions in apartment buildings on the block

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)

Apartment building owners in major Canadian cities are quietly selling billions of dollars worth of properties at premium valuations. Buildings currently up for grabs include a portfolio of roughly 7,000 apartment units owned by Ranee Management largely located in the GTA.

Immigration adding fuel to Vancouver market: Forum

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Western Investor  •  RENX

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal, Anthem Properties chief executive officer Eric Carlson and other industry members at last week’s virtual Vancouver Real Estate Forum forecasted a roaring housing market thanks to increased immigration.

Calgary’s massive Taza project acquires retail tenants

Residential, Commercial  •  CBC  •  RENX

The ambitious Taza development on the Tsuut’ina Nation on the outskirts of Southwest Calgary says several tenants including a Bank of Montreal, Tim Hortons and a Dollarama, have signed on to become tenants of the Shops at Buffalo Run.

Tien Sher’s 54-storey Surrey tower approved

Residential, Commercial  •  urbanYVR

Surrey has approved an application by Tien Sher Group to build the 54-storey mixed-use Whalley Station tower. The Chris Dikeakos Architects-designed building includes 479 residential units and 235,320 square feet of office space, plus an indoor atrium “garden” with retail spaces.

Cressey proposes 14-storey Coquitlam office tower

Commercial  •  urbanYVR  •  RENX

Cressey has submitted a revised development permit for a 14-storey office building in Coquitlam, called Diagram. The 2992 Glen Drive site is part of Cressey’s M2 tower site. Cressey was granted approval for a nine-storey office tower on the site in 2011.

Warehouse space becoming hard to find: CBRE

Commercial  •  CBC

A boom in online shopping is making it tough to find warehouse space, CBRE says. Toronto, Vancouver and Ontario’s Waterloo region had the lowest availability rates at 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 per cent, respectively. Halifax, Calgary and Edmonton had the highest at 4.3, 7.8 and 9.1.

Developer buys up much of historic Mtl. block

Residential  •  Montreal Gazette

The Chinatown Working Group are sounding the alarm after much of the Montreal neighbourhood’s most historic block was sold to Brandon Shiller and Jeremy Kornbluth, who have a reputation for renovictions.

Montreal politicians debate skyscraper height

Residential, Commercial  •  Kamloops This Week

Montreal’s master plan states building heights must be kept below Mount Royal height of 761 feet above sea level. A proposal by a mayoral candidate to sweep aside the limit raises wider questions about densification, development and the place of skyscrapers.

Tim Hortons shutters Toronto’s innovation cafe

Commercial  •  Financial Post

More than two years after it opened, Tim Hortons has closed its innovation cafe for good, blaming the pandemic that emptied Toronto’s financial district of all its  office workers. Restaurant Brands International (QSR-T) framed the closure as a business decision.

BSR REIT sells Arkansas apartments for $49.5M

Residential  •  Canada Newswire  •  RENX

BSR REIT (HOM-UN-T) announced today it has sold Mountain Ranch Apartments in Fayetteville, Ark., for gross proceeds of $49.5 million US. The sale price reflects a 27.2 per cent increase in this property’s asset value since BSR’s IPO in May 2018.

Vornado sues developer for $1.1M in unpaid rent

Commercial  •  Bisnow

Vornado has sued another major developer, claiming tenant Hongkun USA Real Estate Development owes $1.1 million in back rent and costs associated with it for its space at Vornado’s Midtown Manhattan office building at 888 Seventh Ave.

Apple to spend $1B to establish North Carolina campus

Commercial  •  Reuters

Apple Inc. (AAPL-Q) said it plans to spend $1 billion as it builds a new campus and engineering hub in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. It joins a $1 billion Austin, Texas campus announced in 2019.

REIT M&As poised for post-pandemic rebound

Residential, Commercial  •  Bisnow

Until the pandemic, REITs had a good run of buying each other, along with portfolio acquisitions and other kinds of deals that tended to bulk up the size of their investment portfolios. The trend peaked in 2018 with $78.3B in deals.

Gemstone, Vered propose Ottawa mixed-use 16-storey

Residential, Commercial  •  Ottawa Business Journal

Ottawa’s Gemstone Corp. and Montreal-based Vered Group have proposed a 16-storey tower with 140 rental suites and about 2,600 square feet of ground-floor commercial space at the northwest corner of Somerset Street West and O’Connor Street in the heart of Ottawa’s Centretown.

New construction home prices in GTA soar: BILD

Residential  •  Toronto Star  •  Globe Newswire

The benchmark price of a new construction single-family home in the Toronto region has soared to a record $1.44 million in March — a 29.4 per cent annual increase, the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) reported on Monday.

Research housing market before making changes: National Bank

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Nasdaq  •  Edmonton Journal

National Bank of Canada CEO Louis Vachon said further action may be needed to cool housing markets, but he urged policy makers and bankers to get a better grasp of the root causes driving prices before rushing to change rules.

Average Toronto rent rose slightly in March: Rentals report

Residential  •  Toronto Star

A barely there $14 rise in the average cost of an apartment last month could signal the beginning of the end of more than a year of falling rents in the Toronto region, says a report from Rentals.ca.