WeWork hires C&W to lease Montreal office space

RENX  Commercial  •  Office  •  Greater Montreal, International

Cushman & Wakefield has been hired by WeWork to help the co-working company lease its spaces in four downtown Montreal properties. “They felt by hiring a traditional broker that they would have better reach for tenants,” C&W’s Lloyd Cooper told RENX.

Power shifts to Mtl. office renters: Devencore

Commercial  •  Montreal Gazette  •  Globe Newswire

Downtown Montreal is a renter’s market again for businesses looking to move offices. Office space available for subleases in the central core jumped 33 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 to reach 853,032 square feet, according to Devencore’s winter 2021 market report.

SmartCentres proposes 40- and 38-storey towers

Residential, Commercial  •  Urban Toronto  •  RENX

Under its residential sub-brand SmartLiving, SmartCentres REIT (SRU-UN-T) has proposed 40- and 38-storey towers on Scarborough’s Golden Mile Secondary Plan. The towers would contain a respective 461 and 438 condominium units and be anchored by a combined 13,121 square feet of retail space.

The People Space › People Space: Hirings at Dream, PMA Brethour, IBI, Epic, CBRE…

Don Wilcox: Managing Editor

Wpg. transit overhaul proposal tops $1 billion

Commercial  •  Winnipeg Free Press

The Winnipeg Transit Master Plan proposes to create a network of six rapid transit corridors and redraw most existing local bus routes over the next 25 years. The entire plan could cost up to $1.5 billion, according to early price estimates.

Waterfront Toronto unveils vision for Parliament Slip

Residential, Commercial  •  Canada Newswire

Waterfront Toronto‘s development of the Parliament Slip would include new kayak and canoe launches, lakeside pools and open water swimming opportunities, a floating restaurant, new mooring facilities with charging stations for electric marine craft and a waterfront amphitheatre.

Sponsored by EY Assess, manage and build: how Canadian businesses can expedite their path to recovery

Balancing your portfolio isn’t something you should tackle once this crisis recedes. That process should start here and now, even as waves of disruption continue to impact already distressed assets.

ClubLink to appeal golf course development rejection

Commercial  •  Ottawa Business Journal

Two weeks after the City of Ottawa scored a major legal victory to prevent the Kanata Golf and Country Club from being converted into a housing development, course owner ClubLink says it plans to fight the decision.

Ex-T.O. police chief appointed Ontario Place adviser

Residential, Commercial  •  Globe and Mail

Premier Doug Ford’s government is paying former Toronto Police chief Mark Saunders up to $171,500 a year to be a special adviser on redeveloping Ontario Place from a defunct amusement park on Toronto’s waterfront to a “world-class” attraction.

Ryerson’s new health-sciences rises in downtown T.O.

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail  •  BDC Network

Downtown Toronto’s 300,000-square-foot Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex, Ryerson University’s new 28-storey health-sciences building, marks a $104-million project unveiled as urban planners are looking at how downtown institutional and commercial space may be used differently after COVID-19.

TWC acquires 819,600 Automotive Properties REIT units

Commercial  •  Globe Newswire

TWC Enterprises Limited (TWC) announced it has acquired beneficial ownership of, or control or direction over 819,600 trust units of Automotive Properties REIT (APR-UN-T) at a weighted average price of $10.83 per unit, representing 2.17% of the REIT’s issued and outstanding units.

Podcasts from the real estate world

Residential, Commercial  • 

Toni Rossi, Infrastructure Ontario: Equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives, REALtalk: Episode 20
Doug Allan, Burrard Properties: A fighting chance, Highview Partners People Who Perform: Season 2 Episode 5
Arash Shahi, AECO Innovation Lab: The One Ontario initiative, The Construction Record Podcast – Episode 110

Kilroy sells San Francisco office tower for $1.08B

Commercial  •  Real Estate Weekly  •  MarketWatch  •  CP Executive

Kilroy Realty Corp. (KRC-N) said it has signed an agreement to sell The Exchange on 16th, the company’s 750,000-square-foot office property at 1800 Owens St. in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighbourhood, for $1.08 billion or approximately $1,440 per square foot.

Foreign buyers position for U.S. CRE opportunities

Commercial  •  Wealth Management

After dipping to a seven-year low, foreign investment into U.S. commercial real estate could be poised for a big year of buying in 2021, according to Real Capital Analytics. Canadian and Asia Pacific investors remained quite active in U.S. CRE in 2020.

Manhattan’s agents take up TikTok to find renters

Residential  •  Bloomberg

New York real estate professionals are turning to the booming social media app TikTok to find tenants in a market where apartment units are piling up amid near-record vacancies. For some, the 60-second videos have changed their jobs completely.

Gap weighing sale of China business: Report

Commercial  •  Reuters

Retailer Gap Inc. is weighing options including a potential sale of its China business, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing sources. The report said the Old Navy parent was working with an adviser to explore its options and has contacted prospective suitors.

Condo craze moves to Ontario’s smaller centres

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

New condo sales have ramped up in Ontario’s less populated regions, including Niagara and Simcoe, a sign demand for housing in suburban and semi-rural areas is growing stronger, according to Altus Group.

Feds’ rent-subsidy to roll out to 25,000 B.C. households

Residential  •  Globe and Mail

A federal rent-supplement program first promised by the Liberal government in 2017 finally appears set to roll out in B.C. The program will provide $517-million to about 25,000 households in B.C. over the next 10 years, Ahmed Hussen announced Monday.

Calgary, Edmonton housing surge a puzzler

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

While floor-upon-floor of downtown office towers sit empty, home sales and prices in Calgary are going up. This year the city had its busiest February for sales since 2014, and the price for detached homes is up five per cent year-over-year.

Urban planning must shift to meet post-COVID challenges

Residential  •  Globe and Mail

OPINION: In downtown Toronto’s Harbord Village, a place full of Victorian houses and university professors, a proposal to turn a century-old office building into seven apartments has the neighbours in an uproar.