EY-Parthenon is marketing a unique hybrid office and data centre property in Waterloo, Ont. that was owned by the Michael Wekerle-led Waterloo Innovation Network 2 Inc. before being placed under receivership just over a year ago.

Fuller Landau was appointed receiver for the property following an application by Waygar Capital, as agent for Ninepoint Canadian Senior Debt Master Fund LP, which was owed $87.6 million. The application was granted in February 2025. Fuller Landau chose EY-Parthenon to try to monetize the property.

Wekerle, who may be best known to the public as an investor on the Canadian reality television show Dragons' Den for three years, acquired a group of buildings in Waterloo in 2014 that once housed BlackBerry, with the aim of creating a technology incubator to attract firms to the area.

“They became unable to service the debt that they had put on the property, which was also collateralized against debts on some other entities – one being the famous (live music and entertainment venue) El Mocambo in Toronto, and they couldn't service its debt either,” EY-Parthenon senior vice-president of transaction advisory services Gus Tertigas explained in an interview with RENX.

The interview also included senior associate of real estate strategy and transactions Pedram Berjis and VP of real estate transactions and corporate finance Jackson Cornelius.

“That went into receivership," continued Tertigas. "We sold that property in August of last year and we were engaged to do the same here.”

What the property offers

The 22-year-old, four-storey building features 108,292 square feet of office space and a 28,000-square-foot data centre, while the 6.1-acre site at 176 Columbia St. W. also includes a 6,000-square-foot generator building.

The data centre has eight megawatts of power in place, but a power expansion application has been filed with Enova Power Corp., which serves the power needs of more than 165,000 residents and businesses in the area, to expand that to 13 megawatts. That would create meaningful scalability for future data centre operations.

“The asset has built-in flexibility in terms of where it goes with its ultimate use,” Tertigas explained. “It's currently structured so that it's a main floor data centre and the other three floors are office, but it can easily be scaled to two and two with minimal structural changes.”

The primary building is now approximately 60 per cent occupied by sole tenant Ford Canada, which has signage on the outside and uses it for technology research and development. That presents an opportunity for an investor to enhance cash flow through leasing the vacant space.

“We've been getting interest from the data centre community, owner-operators, different real estate asset holders and local developers,” Berjis said.

Intensification opportunity in a central location

The site is in the heart of Waterloo, with convenient access to public transit, amenities, the University of Waterloo and a deep labour pool. 

It’s also surrounded by ongoing intensification and mixed‑use redevelopment, which supports long‑term growth and infrastructure investment. Waterloo-based IN8 Developments has proposed high-rise residential buildings at 170 and 180 Columbia St. W., according to Berjis.

The site has 440 parking stalls, some of which could be eliminated to enable further development. 

“That provides additional flexibility in terms of potential scalability of the project for other uses and new buildings that could be put there too, obviously pending permitting and approval from the municipality,” Cornelius said.

Two purchase options

Offers will be considered for either the real estate asset or the shares of Waterloo Innovation Network 2 Inc., the legal owner of the property. Either structure will be conditional on court approval and would result in the conveyance of the shares or asset free and clear of liabilities.

When an asset is sold in typical receiverships, ownership free and clear of any liability is acquired through a vesting order issued by the court. 

“The other way you can do it – and it's become the flavour of the month over the last 18 to 24 months – is by doing something called a reverse vesting order, which is essentially the exact opposite of a vesting order,” Tertigas explained. 

“So rather than taking the asset out of the company with all the liabilities and putting it into a new company, you take all the liabilities of that company, put those in a new company, leave the asset in the existing corporation and now you own the asset. Now you own the shares free and clear of any obligation, so the only thing that's in that corporate entity is the asset itself.”

Tertigas said the reverse vesting order can be attractive because it eliminates paying a land transfer tax, potentially preserves all tax losses and, to the extent that the buyer wants, would preserve any existing contracts — such as for energy with Enova.