RoseFellow JV buys Mtl. Garment District industrial sites

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial  •  Greater Montreal

Saying the area is ripe for resurgence, RoseFellow has partnered with two other Montreal-based firms to buy a portfolio of four industrial buildings in the city’s centrally located Garment District.

Ottawa industrial rents among Canada’s highest: Colliers

Commercial  •  Ottawa Business Journal

With the rate of available space once again approaching historic lows, Ottawa has become Canada’s most expensive industrial market east of Vancouver, according to Colliers, which says Ottawa continues to see strong leasing demand from e-commerce and distribution companies.

Van. industrial land not being optimally utilized: Data

Commercial  •  ConstructConnect

While many developers are decrying the lack of land available for industrial projects and cities attempt to protect supply, new data from Metro Vancouver 2020 Regional Industrial Lands Inventory shows the region’s limited sites are increasingly being used for non-industrial purposes.

Merchant House acquires 61-unit New West multifamily

Residential  •  Vancouver Sun

Victoria-based asset management group Merchant House Capital recently acquired Kinnaird Place, an older 61-unit residential building near New Westminster‘s downtown, for $22.7 million, ending a years-long saga leading to its strata winding up.

Slate completes first closing on Annaly’s $2.93B portfolio

Commercial  •  Business Wire  •  RENX  •  RENX

Slate Asset Management completed the first closing of the $2.93-billion acquisition of the U.S. commercial real estate business of Annaly Capital Management. The portion of the portfolio being acquired by Slate Grocery REIT (SRT-U-T) is expected to close in Q3 2021.

Push is on to fill downtown Mtl.’s empty towers

Commercial  •  Montreal Gazette

Efforts for a return to the office are underway in Montreal. Some companies want to bring all of their people back at least a few days a week by late summer, says Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal‘s Michel Leblanc.

The Saskatchewan Edge › Saskatoon’s industrial, retail and office vacancy rates all decline

Barry Stuart: Managing Partner and Senior Sales Associate , ICR Commercial Real Estate

Bank of Canada to allow 50% remote work

Commercial  •  Financial Post

The Bank of Canada will allow most of its employees to work remotely as much as 50 per cent of the time once it fully reopens. A limited number of staff are currently working in the central bank’s offices in Ottawa.

Phase 4 underway on 22-acre Langford community

Residential, Commercial  •  Victoria Times Colonist  •  RENX

Construction is underway on Ledcor Property Investments‘ Reunion condominium building, the fourth-and-final phase of the 22-acre community in Langford, which will include 520 condo and rental units and 160,000 square feet of commercial space developed by Crombie REIT (CRR-UN-T).

Couche-Tard predicted to become a grocery retailer

Commercial  •  Retail Insider  •  RENX

Laval-headquartered Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ATD-A-T) was not successful earlier this year in acquiring international food retailer Carrefour SA, but Sylvain Charlebois, professor, director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, believes it will eventually enter the growing food retail market.

Retailer Frank And Oak to expand globally

Commercial  •  Retail Insider

New owner Unified Commerce Group has big plans for retailer Frank And Oak, which went through bankruptcy protection last year. President Dustin Jones said UCG will facilitate Frank And Oak’s expansion into the U.S. and into new markets, including Asia.

69% of business owners feel optimistic: CIBC

Commercial  •  Canada Newswire

Coming out of the 18-month-long pandemic, a CIBC study suggests business owners in Canada feel brighter days may be ahead: 69 per cent (+10 percentage points from November and +19 percentage points from April) feel optimistic about their businesses’ long-term future.

Restaurants struggle to bring back workers

Commercial  •  Toronto Star  •  La Presse  •  Toronto Star

With restaurants now welcoming back indoor diners, it’s been hard to get front-of-house staff, so Toronto’s Oyster Boy owner Adam Colquhoun offered a $1,000 retention bonus to servers who could commit to a minimum of three months.

Instacart to build its own warehouses

Commercial  •  Bisnow

Instacart will begin creating its own network of distribution centres in a partnership with warehouse automation firm Fabric. The warehouses will store 10,000 to 50,000 items and use automation to sort orders, which would be picked up by drivers for home delivery.

Hotel Equities announces alliance with The Hotel Group

Commercial  •  Globe Newswire

Hotel ownership, management and development firm Hotel Equities announced it has entered into a strategic alliance with Edmonds/Seattle-headquartered The Hotel Group, a prominent hospitality development and investment group whose portfolio is predominantly located in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Peerage Realty buys interest in Four Seasons Sotheby’s

Residential  •  Canada Newswire  •  Burlington Free Press

Peerage Realty Partners Inc. announced the acquisition of a substantial partnership interest in Four Seasons Sotheby´s International Realty, a leading premium real estate brokerage in Vermont and New Hampshire whose residential real estate sales will exceed $2.16 billion Cdn this year.

Short-term property rentals start to rebound

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)

Airbnb (ABNB-Q) and Vrbo bookings in major Canadian cities are increasing as the economy reopens and travel restrictions ease. The number of booked nights has risen steadily since hitting a low in February, according to new data from AirDNA.

Rental housing market is heating up again

Residential  •  Globe and Mail (Sub. required)

Activity is heating up in rental housing markets across Canada, a troubling sign for affordability. The pandemic offered a slight reprieve in many cities as vacancies climbed and asking rates fell, owing partly to a drastic slowdown in population growth.

Adding needed housing supply is easier said than done

Residential  •  Financial Post

Canada is not alone in struggling to build enough housing to provide affordable shelter alternatives. A commentary in The Economist exposed the frustrations of successive British governments in failing to meet the stated objective of building 300,000 new homes each year.

B..C. buyers embracing co-ownership model

Residential  •  Globe and Mail

For those who want the security of ownership, the co-ownership model is one of the few ways of finding affordable housing in the Lower Mainland without having to move into a high-rise building or basement suite.