First Gulf, Stack Infra JV to build 56MW Toronto data centres

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial, Technology  •  Toronto / GTA, International

Stack Infrastructure will launch its first Canadian data centre campus in the east end of Toronto in a joint venture with developer First Gulf. The 56-megawatt campus will be located at 3950 Danforth Ave.

Lépine gets OK for three Ottawa rental buildings

Residential  •  CBC

Lépine Corporation received the go-ahead from Ottawa’s planning committee on Thursday to build six-, nine- and 18-storey rental buildings on Robert Grant Avenue, a road that should some day become a major north-south artery in the city’s far west.

T.O. fire hall to find new life as mixed-use tower

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

Toronto’s 50-year-old fire hall at 260 Adelaide St. W., a Brutalist behemoth, will be redeveloped by Create TO as a mixed-use tower with 652 homes, 30 per cent of them at 80 per cent average market rent for 99 years.

Agrifood, resource industries ready to fuel Sask. growth

RENX  Commercial  •  Industrial, Office, Retail  •  Saskatchewan

The past year has been slow for Saskatchewan commercial real estate developers and investors. Transaction figures show Regina and Saskatoon each saw just over $100 million in transactions; about average for Regina, but significantly lower for Saskatoon.

Alberta farmland prices can octuple close to town

Residential, Commercial  •  Western Investor

Western Canada farmland prices can quickly head out of sight, particularly near Calgary or Metro Vancouver. In Q1, 17 urban and agricultural acreages with development potential in Calgary sold for $73 million, according to the Farm Credit Canada 2020 Farmland Values Report.

Home builders hit by product shortages, volatile prices

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

Canadian home builders’ supply-chain disruptions are resulting in widespread product shortages and explosive costs for the industry. In some cases, home construction is months behind schedule as developers struggle to source everything from lumber to PVC pipes, insulation to windows.

Community amenity contributions: Isn’t rental housing an amenity?

Mark Goodman and Cynthia Jagger: Mark Goodman, Principal, Goodman Commercial Inc.

T&T Supermarket returns to downtown Toronto

Commercial  •  Toronto Star

A year after T&T closed on Cherry Street, the East Asian supermarket is opening a new location at College and Spadina this fall, taking over the former Independent City Market space.

Calgary’s Repsol Sport Centre to get $45M expansion

Commercial  •  CBC  •  Global News

Calgary’s community and protective services committee voted to allocate $45 million for an expansion of the inner-city Repsol Sport Centre and to put $400,000 each into the struggling Beltline Aquatic and Fitness Centre and the Inglewood Aquatic Centre.

Will Calgary arena be catalyst for downtown recovery?

Commercial  •  Calgary Herald

OPINION: Calgary’s city centre is on life support and now the arena project is on hold. There has been much controversy over the arena and the value it will, or will not, add to the revitalization of the city centre.

Kenney government stymying Calgary’s Green Line LRT

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail

EDITORIAL: Last June, after Calgary City Council voted to approve the long-delayed Green Line light rail transit project, Mayor Naheed Nenshi declared it a “victory for all Calgarians.” Yet as premier, Jason Kenney has pushed against the Green Line.

Is Canada in line to be the next Silicon Valley?

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail

OPINION: As a Canadian venture capitalist based in California for the past 20 years, I’ve kept a close eye on the tech scene back home – and the transformation during that time has been nothing short of spectacular.

San Fran tech firms suffer record office vacancy

Commercial  •  CNBC

Cloudera, DoorDash and Airbnb combined have recorded nearly $200 million in real estate impairments in the past year after COVID-19 turned the Bay Area office market into a dead zone.

HBC to buy at least 15% BIPOC-owned, designed brands

Commercial  •  Toronto Star  •  Canada Newswire

Canada’s oldest retailer Hudson’s Bay Co. has pledged that at least 15 per cent of all new brands purchased, beginning with the fall/winter 2021 season, will be owned or designed by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous or people of colour) people.

Downtown Van. rents fell by 24% YOY in Q1

Residential  •  Daily Hive

According to a new analysis by Vancouver-based digital platform Liv Rent, average rental prices in downtown Vancouver fell by 24.1% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. Only downtown Vancouver one-bedroom units recorded an increase in rent.

Rental market could heat up as economy reopens

Residential  •  Financial Post

A strong resurgence in the GTA’s rental market could be seen as a precursor for the forecasted economic recovery in the latter half of the year. However, the combination of rising leases and declining rents presents a puzzle.

Canadian home sales fall from record: CREA

Residential  •  Financial Post  •  Canada Newswire  •  Toronto Star

Canadian home sales fell from a record in April as a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and lockdown measures slowed the red-hot housing market. National home sales fell 12.5 per cent in April month-over-month, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Housing starts drop nearly 20% in April: CMHC

Residential  •  Toronto Star  •  Canada Newswire

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the annual pace of housing starts fell nearly 20 per cent in April as the pace of multiple-unit housing projects slowed. CMHC says the annual pace of starts for April was 268,631 units, down from 334,759 month-over-month.

Housing market cooling efforts won’t work: Tal

Residential  •  Toronto Star  •  Toronto Star  •  Toronto Star

“The reality is we’re fighting supply issues with demand tools, which by definition cannot be successful. Over the past decade, changes to regulations were all on the demand side,” says Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist of CIBC World Markets.

Van.’s affordable housing promises remain unfulfilled

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

It looked as though Vancouver was about to see a surge of lower-cost housing that would make a dent in its shortage a few years ago. Thousands of units were announced in a new burst of activity starting in 2016.