Pearson unveils design for new transit hub

Pearson unveils design for new transit hub

The GTA could be getting a second Union Station, but this one would be at Pearson airport. The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) released new images of the multi-modal transit centre it wants to build across from Pearson’s two main terminals by 2027. The centre would connect with a number of transit lines including the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

CBC – Globe and Mail

Wal-Mart steps up grocery wars with e-commerce drive

The country’s food fight is heating up as Wal-Mart Canada Corp. (WMT-N) expands its grocery e-commerce into home deliveries. The discount behemoth has started to test online food deliveries – including fresh fruits, vegetables and meat – to select condominium towers in downtown Toronto, with the pilot set to expand next month to more homes in that city’s core.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Forbes

Lowest return for IPD index in decades, REALPAC / MSCI

The weather was appropriate grey, cold and blustery in Toronto for the release of the annual REALPAC/MSCI 2016 results of the IPD index. Jokes from the stage included real estate executives visiting their cardiologists preceding some heart-slowing results: the index produced a total return of just 5.7 per cent.

Property Biz Canada

Census: Calgary still Canada’s fastest-growing city

Alberta’s largest cities have seen explosive growth, while their booming suburbs are set to have a larger sway in the province’s 2019 election, according to census data released Wednesday. Statistics Canada says Calgary remains Canada’s fastest-growing city, even amid the economic downturn that persisted during the May 2016 survey. Calgary’s metropolitan area grew 14.6 per cent between 2011 and 2016.

Calgary Herald – Montreal Gazette – Winnipeg – Winnipeg Free Press

Brandon U seeks to rejuvenate downtown

Brandon University will pursue a major downtown development that may include student residences and senior housing, as well as commercial- and academic-use buildings. City council voted Monday night to sell two properties to BU for $1 each. This deal, along with an agreement in principle with Renaissance Brandon, will expand the university’s downtown footprint to six parcels of land.

Winnipeg Free Press

Little commerce at Edmonton’s Commerce Place

It can be a lonely walk through the main floor of Commerce Place, an office and retail complex on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton. Several storefronts are papered over and there are big signs in the windows, advertising leasing opportunities. Oil & Vinegar is in the process of closing down after only a year and a half.

CBC

Office staging a force that’s here to stay

“Staging” houses so they make a good first impression has long been a way of trying to sell them faster and for higher prices. Now that trend is becoming more common in office leasing, and both landlords and tenants seem to be reaping benefits from the practice.

Property Biz Canada

A&W plans major Canadian expansion

Fast-food chain A&W Food Services of Canada plans to open more than 200 franchisee-owned restaurants by 2020. The burger joint already boasts 879 locations in the country, mostly in Western Canada, and the expansion will focus on Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. The company recently re-invented itself as an option for diners seeking higher-quality ingredients.

Halifax ChronicleHerald

Beer sales coming to 80 more Ontario grocery stores

More Ontario grocery stores will be allowed to sell beer and cider as soon as this summer, as the LCBO opens up a bidding process for 80 new permits across the province. Right now, 130 grocery stores have the required authorization to sell beer under the program. The province is ultimately aiming for beer sales at 450 grocery stores.

CBC

Ottawa approves site for super library

The City of Ottawa finally has a site locked down for a new main library. Council voted 21-1 on Wednesday to partner with Library and Archives Canada to build a $168-million facility at 557 Wellington St., on the corner of Albert and Commissioner streets. The city’s portion would be $99 million but the estimates are still very preliminary.

Ottawa Citizen

Ontario finance minister prefers single securities regulator

Ontario Minister of Finance Charles Sousa recently told Commercial Real Estate Lenders Association (CRELA) members he would like to see a single securities regulator across Canada. Sousa told stakeholders at a Jan. 17 CRELA luncheon, however, that single-regulator goal isn’t currently possible and that a more achievable first step is to merge willing provincial participants.

Property Biz Canada

Sask. didn’t follow land sale rules: Official

The man who was in charge of making sure Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Highways followed its own land buying rules says it failed miserably three years ago, when it purchased property from the Global Transportation Hub.

CBC

Pierrefonds West developers frustrated by delay

The five developers who own land in Pierrefonds West want to know what additional information they can supply to the borough to facilitate the project’s launch. More than two years ago, their proposed Cap Nature Pierrefonds Ouest development project was presented to the public. Since then, the pile of commissioned reports has continued to grow.

Montreal Gazette

RBC renews office lease at Brookfield Place

RBC Capital Markets (RY-T), the corporate and investment banking services arm of the multinational bank, has signed a lease renewal totaling approximately 400,000 square feet in the American Express Tower in New York, part of the Brookfield Place complex. The deal will keep the tenant on the sixth, eighth through 12th, 14th and 25th floors of the tower through 2032.

CoStar Group

London investment rises in Q4 2016: CBRE

Investment volumes in London jumped to £4.1bn ($6,7 billion Cdn)  in the final quarter of last year, according to CBRE. The advisory firm’s latest Property Perspective report found Q4 was the strongest quarter of 2016, pushing the annual total to £13.1bn.

IPE Real Estate

Market Trends and Research

GTA CRE leased space plummets

Toronto Real Estate Board Commercial Network Members reported 345,658 square feet of combined industrial, commercial/retail and office space leased through the TREB MLS System, on a per square foot net basis with pricing disclosed, in January 2017. This result was down from 555,606 square feet leased in January 2016. 

Marketwired – GlobeSt.com

Illegal dumping of construction waste costing B.C. taxpayers

During his daily nine-kilometre run along Richmond, B.C.’s rural roads, Andrew Waldichuk started to notice the garbage. He’d see old appliances, toilets, furniture, garbage bags, Styrofoam and drywall. In early January, on a remote strip of Cambie Road, he and his running buddies spotted about 30 bags marked “asbestos” dumped alongside a berry farm.

Globe and Mail

Real Estate Companies

Dream a Mosaic Stadium Founding Partner

The Saskatchewan Roughriders announced today the addition of Dream Unlimited Corp. (DRM-T) as a Mosaic Stadium Founding Partner. “We are proud to be partnered with Dream Unlimited Corp. as a Founding Partner of Mosaic Stadium,” stated Saskatchewan Roughriders Vice President of Sales & Partnerships, Steve Mazurak.

Marketwired

SaskTel expanding data capacity with new facility

SaskTel is shelling out $10.7 million to purchase a Tier III Data Centre in White City, just east of Regina. According to a news release, the additional facility will significantly increase SaskTel’s data centre capacity by adding 10,000 square feet. SaskTel currently has a total of 41,000 square feet in seven different data centre locations, with four in Regina and three in Saskatoon. 

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Some reasons to target value-add multi-family

By acquiring value-add multi-family properties in key Western U.S. markets, Trion Properties is able to capitalize on the economic growth of the regions while creating revenue, enabling the firm to generate strong, risk-adjusted returns to investors, managing partner Max Sharkansky tells GlobeSt.com. 

GlobeSt.com

Halifax set to unveil science Discovery Centre

It’s hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth, but Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is luminous inside a theatre-style immersive dome at the Discovery Centre in Halifax. Many corners of the universe are accessible from the comfort of the planetarium’s 65 cushy chairs, but there’s one place audiences are always eager to see: Earth.

Toronto Star

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Better buy: Boardwalk or CAPREIT?

Both Boardwalk REIT (BEI.UN-T) and Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAR.UN-T) are popular apartment REITs owned by many Canadian investors. They’re great companies with histories of delivering steady income to shareholders. Should investors prefer one over the other today? Let’s take a closer look.

Motley Fool – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Retail

RYU athleisure wear company grows by confident inches

A young Vancouver apparel company is set to add to B.C.’s athleisure clothing industry. RYU Apparel, which owns three stores in the Vancouver area and expects to open its first store in Toronto in April, is the latest West Coast company to enter the larger category.

Financial Post

Indie music stores optimistic despite HMV bankruptcy

With Canada’s mightiest music chain limping into oblivion, independent retailers in Edmonton are not ready to sing their swan song just yet. HMV Canada has gone bankrupt. However, Peter Ferguson hasn’t changed his tune about the future of his own business, Revolver Inc,, which has two locations in Edmonton and specializes in hard-to-find and out-of-print DVDs, CDs and vinyl.

CBC – Halifax ChronicleHerald

Indigo gains in holiday quarter

Indigo Books & Music Inc. (IDG-T) posted higher sales in the all-important holiday quarter on the strength of its performance in non-book categories, such as toys and lifestyle gifts. For the third quarter ended Dec. 31, Canada’s biggest book chain reported a 4.5 per cent boost in revenue to $400.3 million compared with the same period last year.

Financial Post

Latest reports:

* Gap Inc.,  (GPS-N), Globe and Mail   

New Development

Calgary commits funds to Victoria Park

As the Calgary Flames’ ownership group considers a new event centre at Victoria Park, the city’s land developer will create a blueprint for development in the downtown neighbourhood, putting up $150 million for local improvements. The Calgary Municipal Land Corp. said Tuesday it wants to create an arts and cultural district on the downtown east end site.

Calgary Herald

York student centre to be an ‘architectural jewel’

Toronto’s York University is targeting completion in spring 2018 of a 126,000-square-foot student centre, the second such facility to be built on the university’s Keele campus. Designed by CannonDesign, the project was initiated, led and funded by the student body in a unique development partnership with York and the City of Toronto.

Daily Commercial News

New development coming to Victoria area

Residents in the West Bay area of Esquimalt have been waiting a long time for a development to coalesce around the “gem of a location.” It’s on the way in the form of a six-storey residential and commercial project, said developer Mark Lindholm, owner of the nearby Westbay Marina. Estimated cost is about $22 million, he said.

Victoria Times Colonist

Ottawa’s proposed busway wins committee OK

The proposed Baseline Road busway took a step forward Wednesday as the city’s transportation committee approved a plan to build the $148-million cross-town line to carry 10,000 riders a day. The 14-kilometre corridor bypasses downtown Ottawa.

Ottawa Citizen

B.C. approves Revelstoke adventure park

Revelstoke could soon be home to the largest outdoor playground in Canada: the B.C. government has just approved a new adventure park to be located 10 kilometres outside the city. The Revelstoke Adventure Park is a joint venture between local Revelstoke company Black Tie Properties and Northland Properties, which runs Revelstoke Mountain Resort.

CBC

Infrastructure

Kamloops hospital’s expansion given green light

The B.C. government announced Monday a $417 million patient care tower is going forward. “Royal Inland Hospital is a resource not just for Kamloops but for the entire Thompson-Nicola region,” Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar said in a release. The building will be nine storeys, with three of those floors specifically designed to house inpatient beds.

CBC – Vancouver Province

SaskPower eyeing four new natural gas plant sites

SaskPower says it has identified four potential sites where a new natural gas plant could be built. The locations are in West Sherwood, just north of Regina, as well as Rowatt, Belle Plaine and Moose Jaw Industrial Park. SaskPower says rising demand for power shows the province’s next natural gas plant could be needed as early as 2022.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

REM electric train: A Montreal of the possible

Whether it’s big data or new media, artificial intelligence or virtual reality, Montreal is laying the foundations for its future. Thinking differently is what we try to do every day at la Caisse. And our Réseau électrique métropolitain project is a good example of thinking differently in undertaking a major public transit initiative.

Montreal Gazette – CBC

Other

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