Grouse Mountain resort near Vancouver to be sold

Grouse Mountain resort near Vancouver to be sold

The venerable Grouse Mountain resort in North Vancouver is being put up for sale after the family that has owned it for the past 40 years decided it was time to pursue other interests. “This recent decision will ensure that Grouse Mountain continues to build on its strong heritage and further cultivate the Grouse Mountain brand and opportunities,” said a statement from the resort.

CBC – Globe and Mail

B.C.’s film industry gobbling up industrial buildings

B.C.’s booming film industry is making it difficult for other businesses to compete for space amid a pressing shortage of industrial buildings across Metro Vancouver, say commercial real estate experts.  The film industry’s absorption of industrial space in the region has been surging, said Roy Pat, an industrial sales and leasing specialist with Colliers International in Vancouver.

Vancouver Sun

Challenge to Oakridge Centre valuation fails

The Vancouver Property Assessment Appeal Board says a $367 million drop in the Oakridge Centre property valuation was not a mistake. Panel chair Dale Pope and member Bruce Turner agreed in a September 9 written decision with the 2015 reassessment at $500.54 million after South Vancouver Parks Society contested the valuation at a five-day hearing in June.

Business in Vancouver

Façadism isn’t a necessary evil; sometimes it’s just the right choice

A number of years before I introduced myself in these pages – and I have been writing for The Globe for over 13 years – I learned about the possible demolition of the Concourse Building at 100 Adelaide St. W. I was devastated. In a city with few examples of colourful, expressive Art Deco architecture, its loss would have cut deeper than the loss of a Modernist building.

Globe and Mail

Small is now beautiful inside the ever-changing shopping mall

Shopping malls’ importance to the economy are often underestimated during the current period of flux in the retail industry, the president and chief executive office of the International Council of Shopping Centres said Tuesday. “One out of 10 jobs in Canada relates to the shopping centre industry and 19 per cent of Canadian GDP relates to the shopping centre industry,” said Tom McGee.

Financial Post

Loblaws shows every company is becoming a software company

This August, Loblaw (L-T) announced its $170-million purchase of QHR Corp., an electronic medical records rm based in Kelowna, B.C. Judged against the company’s $12-billion acquisition of Shoppers Drug Mart in 2014, this year’s deal seems puny however the purchase marks the path executive chairman and president Galen G. Weston has set for his grocery empire.

Canadian Business

Kimco’s 2020 vision

To Kimco Realty Corp. (KIM-N) President and CEO Conor Flynn, today’s open-air shopping centers play an increasingly central role in the life of the surrounding community, acting in effect as an alternative main street. He developed that perspective during a 13-year tenure at the company during which he held various management positions, including COO and CIO.

REIT.com

Major maintenance project for New Brunswick refinery

Irving Oil says Canada’s largest oil refinery will begin a $135 million tune-up next week that will utilize 2,400 workers over six weeks. Mark Sherman, chief operating officer at Irving Oil, says workers will undertake maintenance and infrastructure projects to increase the Saint John, N.B., refinery’s efficiency and performance.

Montreal Gazette

Edmonton’s Maclab Enterprises splits into two new companies

Longtime Edmonton developer Maclab Enterprises has split into two firms to handle its property management and land development operations. Maclab Properties Group, run by Jonathan Chia, former chief financial officer of Melcor Developments Ltd., will handle the company’s rental properties, while Bill Blais, former vice-president of Maclab Enterprises, heads Maclab Development Group.

Edmonton Journal

IBM opens innovation space to scale up tech development

IBM (IBM-N) in partnership with Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Government ofOntario launched the IBM Innovation Space, a new startup hub in Toronto to accelerate innovation activities and investments in Ontario by helping businesses propel into the global marketplace. The IBM Innovation Space is the first initiative to launch under the IBM Innovation Incubator Project.

Canada Newswire

Technoparc Montreal announces opening of 4Degrés data centre

Technoparc Montreal has announced the opening of the first of three major builds that got underway in 2015. The official opening of the new 4Degrés data centre took place Sept. 13. The 43,000-square-foot facility is valued at $40 million and is the newest project from communications and IT giant Videotron. 

Daily Commercial News

Colliers International appoints Stephen Harper to its Board

Colliers International Group Inc. (CIG-T) announced the appointment of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C. to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.  Mr. Harper recently retired as a Member of Parliament following an esteemed career in elected politics.

Colliers Canada

Collect your share of money pouring into REITs

Why are fund managers suddenly pouring record sums of cash (as much as $100 billion, according to JP Morgan Chase) into real estate investment trusts? How did one of the most misunderstood investment classes on Wall Street go from zero to hero virtually overnight? Just this month, real estate became the 11th investment sector tracked by Standard & Poor’s—a watershed event that’s catapulting REITs into the spotlight.

Forbes

MedEquities set to become newest publicly traded REIT

In what has been a rare occurrence in the past couple of years MedEquities Realty Trust Inc. is set to launch an initial public offering of a new REIT. Most of the REIT activity recently has been of the non-traded variety, but that may change in the future as investment in public REITs are now a a stand alone sector the S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI Inc. stock indexes.

CoStar Group

Blackstone said in deal to buy U.S. warehouses

Blackstone Group LP agreed to buy 46 industrial properties in the U.S. from LBA Realty LLC for $1.5 billion as it steps up investments in stable, income-producing real estate with low risk, said a person with knowledge of the transaction. The warehouses, located mostly on the West Coast, total 12 million square feet (1.1 million square meters) and are about 95 percent occupied.

Bloomberg

Featured Column

Attract and retain millennials to a CRE career

As a senior executive of a brokerage firm I felt a real frustration not being able to understand the motivation of millennials. I’m not new to the millennial’s, I’ve worked with them throughout my career

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Fort Mac rebuilders getting stung by anti-dumping rules

Over a century ago, a great evil was committed against Canada. Foreign companies were dumping their cheap wares upon Canadians with no regard for a fair price. Such was the language of Canada’s longest-serving finance minister, W.S. Fielding, when in 1904 he introduced the world’s first “anti-dumping” law.

Financial Post

Why Canadians are being offered cash to abandon homes

On the far eastern edge of Canada sits Little Bay Islands, a beautiful, dying village divided by crisis. The fish plant was shuttered half a decade ago, and most supporting businesses—as well as the school—have closed with it. Perry Locke is among the tiny population that’s left. He served as the mayor, the fire chief and now runs the power-generating station. His son was the last student enrolled in town.

Bloomberg

Saint John may not save money by moving city hall, analyst says

Saint John will have a tough time finding space for a new city hall at a better rate than it is paying now, according a real estate analyst. “Realistically to find that amount of space currently vacant in any one building, that doesn’t exist,” said Alexandra Baird Allen, a spokesperson with Turner Drake and Partners, a Halifax-based commercial real estate consultant.

CBC.ca

OECD cuts Canada’s outlook, warns on rapid surge in home prices

The OECD is cutting its outlook for Canada’s economy, also issuing a new warning on inflated home prices. It’s certainly not the first time the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has openly worried about Canada’s housing market, but it is another voice in the growing chorus.

Globe and Mail

Real Estate Companies

Firm Capital Corporation completes $460 million in financings year to date

Firm Capital Corporation is pleased to announce the completion of $460 million in new mortgage financing commitments year to date 2016. Sample transactions are described in the news release linked below.

Firm Capital News Release

PrimeWest Mortgage Investment Corporation suspends dividend

A Saskatoon mortgage investment corporation says it is suspending its dividend after a management review revealed irregularities with its loan portfolio. PrimeWest Mortgage Investment Corporation said its review since June, 2016 revealed a lack of adequate security, failure to follow loan policies and guidelines and the withholding and/or provision of wrongful information to the board and board committees.

Financial Post

REOC Financial Reports

	REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their second-quarter 2016 results. Have we missed any?  Canadian REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report

 

Retail

Target unveils share buyback plan

Target Corp. (TGT-N) on Wednesday announced a new $5-billion share buyback plan. The retailer said it would begin repurchasing shares under the new plan upon completion of its current $10-billion program, which is expected before the end of fiscal 2016 in January.

Globe and Mail

New Development

Chateau Laurier expansion plans being ‘refined’

The owners of the Chateau Laurier are making changes to their controversial plans to expand the iconic downtown hotel. However, a Larco Investments executive says he remains optimistic that the project can still break ground next autumn and says he plans to submit a formal development application to the city next month.

OBJ.ca

Vancouver real estate developer seeks to set record straight

A Vancouver real estate developer and speculator featured in a recent Globe and Mail investigation is pledging to pay his fair share of taxes and work with the Canada Revenue Agency to make sure his books are in order. Kenny Gu sat down with The Globe for an exclusive interview because he said he wanted to clear his name.

Globe and Mail

Renovation and Restoration

St-Dominique St. neighbours angered by Montreal’s inaction

When Paul Stoica and his wife moved into their condominium on St-Dominique Street in 2014, their new neighbour welcomed them with a warning. He told them not to walk in front of the empty, run-down building next door because they might get hit by falling debris.  “We were under the impression it would be torn down fairly quickly,” said Stoica, whose wife was pregnant at the time.

CBC

Technology

‘Smart dorm’ at ETS to help guide tech providers

Students at Quebec’s largest engineering school will be the guinea pigs in an experiment to help map out future directions in the usage and interconnection of technology and mobile devices. One of the first initiatives, to begin in 2017, is a 100-room “smart dorm” outfitted with sensors and other devices that will monitor usage, manage resources optimally and collect data while preserving the anonymity of the occupants.

Montreal Gazette

Other

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