Manulife, Panattoni JV to develop Edmonton industrial

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial  •  Edmonton

Manulife Investment Management and Panattoni Development Company  are partnering on the development of a key parcel of industrial land in the southeast area of Edmonton. The partners purchased the 148-acre parcel in Fulton Creek Business Park at 6010 30th Street N.W.

Goldman Sachs takes minority stake in Slate Asset

Commercial  •  Business Wire  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  Winnipeg Free Press

Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s Petershill program (GS-N) has taken a minority stake in Toronto-based alternative investment firm Slate Asset Management. Slate announced a passive, non-voting minority equity investment, but did not disclose financial terms.

Office campus to transform 40 acres in Vaughan

Commercial  •  Urban Toronto

Dubbed the Milestone Corporate Campus, Milestone Group aims to transform 40 acres of undeveloped Vaughan land adjacent to an existing four-storey office building park. The Diamond Schmitt Architects-designed plan seeks to add millions of square feet in new office space.

WWC acquires 939 Houston, Dallas rental units

RENX  Residential  •  Apartments  •  International

Western Wealth Capital has acquired two multi-family residential communities in Dallas and Houston, adding 939 apartments to its rapidly growing portfolio in the U.S. The North Vancouver-based company says the transaction closed on Aug. 15. Financial details were not disclosed.

Shopping centres repurposed as urban villages

Residential, Commercial  •  Calgary Herald

Greater Vancouver developers are investing billions of dollars in the redevelopment of old shopping centres. The focus is on repurposing them into a multi-use villages where people can live, play and work — not just shop.

Vancouver’s Granville Strip is changing

Commercial  •  Vancouver Sun

Years ago, Charles Gauthier tried to find a brand for the Granville Entertainment District. A consultant told the president of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement association it couldn’t be done. The district, known for its massive nightclubs, defied definition.

Real Estate Wealth Insights › Reducing investment risk, while increasing potential returns

Greg Placidi: Chief Investment Officer & Portfolio Manager, Equiton Capital

Shopify’s success puts spotlight on Canadian tech

Commercial  •  Bloomberg

Shopify’s (SHOP-T) scorching rally and Lightspeed POS’s successful trading debut this year are throwing the spotlight on who might be the next Canadian tech star to go public. A total of $1 billion was invested in 142 venture capital deals in Q1.

$250M Manhattan tech hub breaks ground

Commercial  •  CP Executive

The New York City Economic Development Corp. and RAL Development Services have broken ground on an expansive tech centre in Union Square. The 240,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed next year.

Manulife US REIT reports strong growth in DPU

Commercial  •  Motley Fool

Manulife US (SGX: BTOU), the first pure-play U.S. REIT listed in Asia. Manulife US REIT’s gross revenue for Q2 surged 33.2 per cent year-over-year to US$43.3 million.

Minto Apartment provides price stability, income

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)  •  RENX

Wednesday, while the S&P/TSX composite index declined 1.9 per cent, the unit price of Minto Apartment REIT (MI-UN-T) rallied nearly three per cent to a record close. During the stock market meltdown in Q4 2018, Minto’s unit price  increased eight per cent.

REIT second-quarter financial results

Commercial  • 

Nexus REIT, (NXR-UN-X), Canada Newswire

Catalyst Capital buying 10.5% stake in HBC

Commercial  •  CBC  •  Canada Newswire  •  Toronto Star

Private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group says it has obtained more than 18 million shares in Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC-T), a chunk the investment firm says is sufficient to block a plan from the retailer’s management team to take it private.

GIC buys office fund stake from CPPIB, Lendlease

Commercial  •  IPE Real Assets

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC is acquiring a 25.1 per cent stake in a $3.87-billion Cdn Sydney office fund – Lendlease International Towers Sydney Trust (LLITST) – from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and Lendlease.

Will 2019 set a record for industrial sales?

Commercial  •  National Real Estate Investor

The current high price tags for industrial real estate don’t seem to be discouraging investors. While total investment sales volume in the sector decreased year-over-year in the second quarter, individual asset sales were up 2.7 per cent year-over-year, CBRE reported.

Negative mortgages set another milestone

Residential  •  Yahoo Finance

The world’s headlong dash to zero or negative interest rates just passed another milestone: Jyske Bank A/S, Denmark’s third-largest lender, is paying homebuyers to take out mortgages. Jyske announced a mortgage rate of -0.5%, before fees.

Aoyuan meets demand for multi-generational housing

Residential  •  Toronto Star  •  RENX

Developer Aoyuan International is betting families are ready to swap houses for condos — and is hoping to break new ground by offering three-bedroom units targeting families and multi-generational households in the North York M2M complex, which will start construction shortly.

Inside Canada’s rental housing crisis

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)

Amy Silliker knows where she’s living the next six months. Beyond that, it gets murky. After many years out of province, she snagged a job as a paralegal in Summerside, PEI, taking her back to her hometown nearby in February.

Average two-BR Vancouver apartment $3K

Residential  •  Vancouver Courier  •  insauga.com

Rentals.ca has released its National Rent Rankings report for August, and Vancouver was ranked the most unaffordable city again. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Vancouver costs a staggering $3,049.

Vancouver widens sidewalks to adapt to density

Residential  •  Globe and Mail

A walker trying to navigate the north side of Broadway west of Macdonald in Vancouver would need to keep a sharp lookout to manoeuvre around the sandwich boards, the bike racks and a host of other obstructions on the narrow sidewalk.