With Walmart as anchor, SmartCentres pushes mixed-use growth

RENX  Commercial  •  Retail, Apartments, Condominiums  •  National, Toronto / GTA, Quebec

While SmartCentres’ large Walmart and pharmacy-anchored retail portfolio continues to provide strong recurring income, its mixed-use development program is becoming of ever-increasing importance.

Agreement sets stage for huge Downsview redev.

Residential, Commercial  •  Toronto Star  •  Toronto Star

A compromise between the City of Toronto and two major landowners – Canada Lands and Northcrest Developments – is set to unlock 520 acres for a massive urban transformation of Downsview. The project would be one of North America’s largest urban development sites.

Judge rules to keep Ottawa golf course as greenspace

Residential, Commercial  •  Ottawa Business Journal

A Superior Court judge has upheld a 40-year-old agreement that could prevent Minto Communities and Richcraft Homes from demolishing ClubLink‘s Kanata Golf and Country Club and turning it into a residential subdivision with more than 1,500 homes on the 71-hectare site.

Nine Algonquin F.N. may sue over Ottawa project

Residential, Commercial  •  CTV  •  CBC

Nine Algonquin First Nations in Quebec are considering litigation to stop Ottawa from allowing another Algonquin group to build a new suburb on the outskirts of the city. Algonquins north of the Ottawa River say they have not been consulted.

Slate, Carlyle propose adding fourth tower to complex

Residential  •  Urban Toronto

Carlyle Communities and Slate Asset Management have revised a proposed mixed-use complex at 6 Dawes Rd. beside the Danforth GO station. The original plan included three towers. The latest BDP Quadrangle-designed proposal includes four residential towers of 19, 37, 44, and 46 storeys.

Community engagement key to development: Wesgroup

Residential, Commercial  •  Western Investor  •  RENX

Wesgroup president Beau Jarvis said on a recent virtual event development can be stalled by community opposition, so kitchen-table talks with neighbours can be as important as a boardroom meeting when it comes to having a development approved.

CRE Matters › Five things to watch for in Canada’s industrial market during 2021

Peter Garrigan: Senior Managing Director, Colliers’ Industrial Practice Group, GTA

Top-10 upcoming Canadian projects

Residential, Commercial  •  Daily Commercial News

The accompanying tables show the Top-10 upcoming Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal and Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton construction industry projects in Canada. They are all in the planning stage and are mainly new projects, but may also involve additions and/or alterations.

Sales of Vancouver rental apartments soar

Residential  •  Western Investor

Despite rental vacancies rising to the highest level in 20 years and a provincewide ban on rent increases, sales of Vancouver multifamily rental buildings surged in the second half of 2020 after collapsing 38 per cent year-over-year in the first six months.

Hamilton approves three-building development

Residential, Commercial  •  CBC

Hamilton’s planning committee has approved GSP Group‘s rezoning application for the lands of the Corktown Plaza to build a development that proposes 769 dwelling units across a 27-storey building, 14-storey mixed-use building and attached eight-storey building.

Get people off COVID support: Dream’s Cooper

Commercial  •  Bloomberg

Dream Office REIT (D-UN-T) CEO Michael Cooper is speaking out on COVID-19 benefits’ impact on the recovery. “People have got to make their own money. And whether that’s companies or individuals, we’ve got to get people taking care of themselves.”

MTY Food Group sales fall 30% in Q4

Commercial  •  La Presse  •  Bloomberg  •  Canada Newswire

MTY Food Group (MTY-T), which includes restaurants such as Mikes, Ben & Florentine, Bâton Rouge and Tiki-Ming, experienced a 30% drop in sales in Q4. Restrictions are forcing the company to review its strategy regarding locations in office towers and food fairs.

Cineplex sells blowout bond deal

Commercial  •  Bloomberg

Cineplex Inc. (CGX-T) sold its $250 million sale of unrated bonds at a lower yield than previously offered after seeing strong demand from investors seeking to play the economic recovery trade. Cineplex priced the second-lien secured senior notes to yield 7.5 per cent.

Fed sounds alarm on U.S. CRE, business bankruptcy

Commercial  •  Yahoo Finance

The Federal Reserve warned of significant risks of U.S. business bankruptcies and steep drops in CRE prices in a Friday report. “Business leverage now stands near historical highs,” the central bank said in its semi-annual Monetary Policy Report to Congress.

U.S. hotel bankruptcies on the rise

Commercial  •  Bisnow

A string of U.S. hotel bankruptcy cases have been filed in the last two months and experts believe this trend will continue to increase as owners remain unable to pay their debt service and lenders are less flexible.

How strong is U.S. industrial real estate?: JLL

Commercial  •  CP Executive

While the COVID-19 pandemic effectively stalled the global economy between March and May last year, 2020 ended with an impressive $95.9 billion of industrial volume in the U.S., making it the third-highest total in the sector’s history.

Average rent in Canada down 8.7% in January

Residential  •  REMI Network

The average rent for all Canadian properties in January was $1,714 per month, down 8.7 per cent year-over-year. This decline is slightly worse than the average in the second half of 2020, according to the latest data from Rentals.ca and Bullpen Research & Consulting.

Canadians assume mortgage debt at fastest pace since 2010

Residential  •  Financial Post

Canadians binged on mortgage debt last year, increasing borrowing at the fastest pace in a decade to buy homes. Residential mortgage credit rose 7.7 per cent in 2020 to $1.7 trillion, representing an annual increase of $118 billion, according to data from Statistics Canada.

How housing market defied pandemic expectations

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)

When the pandemic hit last March and lockdowns started, many assumed the economic downturn would hammer real estate. People would be thrown out of work, default on their mortgage payments, maybe even lose their homes.

Housing starts in SW B.C. fell 21% in 2020: Report

Residential  •  Vancouver Sun  •  Business Examiner

The number of housing units that started construction in southwest B.C. fell by 21.7 per cent in 2020 compared to the number in 2019, according to an annual economic outlook report by the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C. (CPABC).

Don’t count the days, make the days counts, Muhammad Ali That was a hard lesson learned for many of us in 2020. That year is now done. We have not forgotten. It was a time for coming together as families