Winnipeg property to receive major makeover

Winnipeg property to receive major makeover

A former St. Boniface gas station/automotive junkyard is being transformed into a new shipping office, cold-storage facility and paved storage yard for Star Building Materials. The $4.9-million redevelopment of the 4.5-acre property is the latest phase in an $18-million expansion project that got underway in 2014 and is expected to be completed late next year or in early 2019.

Winnipeg Free Press – Winnipeg Free Press

Triple Five secures financing for American Dream mall

Despite concerns a series of financing delays had doomed the project for good, the Edmonton-headquartered developer of the long-stalled American Dream Meadowlands megamall has secured $1.67 billion US in private financing to help relaunch its construction. Triple Five‘s $1.15-billion bond issue could also be completed in a matter of weeks, officials said.

NJ Spotlight – NorthJersey.com – CP Executive – Real Estate Weekly

Investments lift Square One past $1B in retail sales

Major renovations and an effort to revamp its tenant base during the past couple of years has made Mississauga’s Square One just the second shopping centre in Canada to surpass $1 billion in annual retail sales.

Property Biz Canada

Westbury to help transform midtown Montreal

The mixed-use Westbury Montreal development represents “the first domino to fall” in an area of Montreal with strong development potential, says the developer behind the project. The $250-million Westbury Montreal and other planned projects will transform the midtown Décarie Boulevard area, says Marc Lefort, vice-president, sales and marketing at Devmont.

Property Biz Canada

How Montreal aims to become a world centre of AI

Key players in Montreal’s rapidly growing artificial-intelligence sector are intent on transforming the city into a Silicon Valley of AI. Certainly, the flurry of activity these days indicates AI in the city is on a roll. Impressive amounts of cash have been flowing into academia, public-private partnerships, research labs and startups active in AI in the Montreal area.

Montreal Gazette – Globe and Mail – Financial Post

Mixed-use village coming to Ottawa

A vibrant urban village will sprout up in Little Italy in the coming years, with a multi-million-dollar mixed-use development project spearheaded by the Ottawa Community Housing Corporation (OCH). Gladstone Village will offer mixed-income housing, retail, commercial and green spaces, and a French language elementary school. The announcement was made Wednesday at the 7.26-acre swath of green space.

Ottawa Citizen – CBC

Seattle startup has Amazon in its sights

A Seattle startup has come out of nowhere to offer online merchants something even Amazon doesn’t: overnight ground delivery to nearly anyone in the country. In less than five years, Flexe has created a marketplace of spare storage space in 550 warehouses, quickly establishing better geographic coverage than the vast delivery network Amazon.com Inc. spent decades and billions building. 

Bloomberg

Pure Multi purchases Phoenix apartment community

Pure Multi-Family REIT LP (RUF.U-X) announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Pinnacle at Union Hills, a multi-family apartment community located in Phoenix for a purchase price of US$47.5 million. Developed by Trammel Crowe Residential in 1997, Pinnacle at Union Hills is a 264-unit, institutional quality asset, with an average unit size of 1,019 square feet. 

Marketwired

CAPREIT distribution-growth king in the making

Motley Fool – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Tims profits are up, but so is franchisee discontent

During a recent visit to the Tim Hortons headquarters, chief executive Daniel Schwartz happily pokes fun at some of the more regimented hallmarks of the chain’s owner, Restaurant Brands International Inc., (QSR-T) right down to the optimal look of an office desk. 

Financial Post

IKEA Group appoints company veteran new CEO

Furniture retailer IKEA Group has appointed company veteran Jesper Brodin as new chief executive, replacing Peter Agnefjall. Brodin, currently head of IKEA of Sweden, will take on the job of leading the IKEA Group, which owns most IKEA stores world-wide, on Sept. 1. He will be based in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Reuters

Blackstone overtakes Brookfield as world’s biggest RE manager

Blackstone (BX-N) has overtaken Brookfield Asset Management (BAM.A-T) as the world’s largest real estate investment manager, according to a survey. The New York-headquartered company has gross assets under management (AUM) of $216 billion Cdn, according to the annual ANREV/INREV/NCREIF fund manager survey, beating Toronto-based Brookfield, which manages $211 billion. Last year, Brookfield topped the list and Blackstone came in at second.  

IPE Real Estate – IPE Real Estate – Property Biz Canada

Marriott No. 1 among world hotels

2016 was a good year for the hotel industry as occupancy levels hit record highs. The big news was Marriott‘s (MAR-Q) mega acquisition of rival Starwood. The multi-billion-dollar deal gave Marriott a clear advantage on many key fronts. The result puts the Bethesda, Md., hotel manager at the top of this year’s lodging portion of the Forbes Global 2000 list. 

Forbes

Rising Chinese investment in U.S. CRE raising concerns

As investors from China continue to splurge on U.S. commercial real estate, concern is rising in Washington over the potential implications this deluge might be having on national security. 

CoStar Group – Mingtiandi – Business In Vancouver

These U.S. buildings paid highest property taxes

Manhattan’s GM Building received a property tax bill of $71 million in 2016 which was the highest in the U.S., according to research conducted by COMMERCIALCafé. Of the top 10 properties with the highest taxes, nine were associated with office buildings, but it is a residential community that takes the second spot on the list. Stuyvesant Town was second at $60.5 million. 

Building Design & Construction – CP Executive

Market Trends and Research

Hotels target millennials with emptier rooms

Ben Schlappig, a 26-year-old travel blogger and consultant, has spent more nights in hotels than many will in a lifetime. “I’m a millennial, but I’m also an introvert,” said Schlappig, whose blog, One Mile at a Time, chronicles the 365 nights a year he stays in hotels. “Hotel executives are building everything around millennials right now. . . . That doesn’t work for me.”

Toronto Star

‘Tide is turning’ for Alberta economies

Gradually rising oil prices will help pull Calgary and Edmonton out of recession this year, with thousands of new jobs forecast for both cities, the Conference Board of Canada says. While energy investment in Alberta will remain sluggish, oil production is set to rise, according to the board’s Metropolitan Outlook: Spring 2017. report.

CBC – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

Real Estate Companies

New rules could add Shopify, Brookfield to index

New rules are in the works for the flagship S&P/TSX composite index that could benefit dozens of companies listed on domestic and U.S. exchanges and open the door to index membership for Shopify (SHOP-T) and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP.UN-T). Currently, a company gets invited only if the volume of trading in its stock exceeds predetermined thresholds on Canadian exchanges. 

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Ottawa Business Journal – Ottawa Business Journal – Smarter Analyst

Ottawa creates inventory of vacant heritage buildings

In an effort to improve monitoring of vacant and boarded-up heritage buildings, the city’s Heritage Matters Task Force has created a list of designated properties in Ottawa to set a baseline for future intervention. The list of 28 buildings includes Broadview School, Somerset House and some other properties that have made headlines.

CBC

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* PROREIT, (PRV.UN-X), Marketwired 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Partners finalizes mortgage on Quebec property

Partners REIT (PAR.UN-T) announced it has finalized a $27.0 million mortgage at the REIT’s Mega Centre property in Saint Laurent, Que. The mortgage is with Otera Capital Inc. and it has a 10-year term, a 23-year amortization period and an interest rate of 3.56 per cent. Partners will devote $23.7 million of the mortgage towards repayment of the property’s existing mortgage. 

Marketwired – Property Biz Canada

U.S. REIT shares slump following short rally

So far this year, the S&P U.S. REIT Index has dropped 1.3 per cent. Last year, it rose 4.2 percent. The S&P 500 stock index, however, jumped 6.9 per cent this year, following a 9.5 per cent increase in 2016. Higher interest rates make it more expensive for REITs to borrow, and investor concern meant REITs saw few gains in the past two years.

The Real Deal – Urban Land Institute – GlobeSt.com

Slate Retail announces bought deal equity offering

Slate Retail REIT (SRT.U-T) announced it has entered into an agreement to sell, on a bought deal basis, 4,410,000 class -U units of the REIT to a syndicate of underwriters led by CIBC Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets and GMP Securities. The units will be offered at a price of $14.75 per unit for gross proceeds of approximately $65 million. 

Marketwired

Retail

Amazon opens grocery pickup kiosks to rival Wal-Mart

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN-Q) opened two grocery pickup kiosks in Seattle, part of its latest effort to enter the $800-billion grocery market and compete with “click and collect” shopping options from big box competitors like Wal-Mart Stores (WMT-N). “AmazonFresh Pickup” lets shoppers buy groceries online and pick them up in as few as 15 minutes rather than delivered to their homes.  

Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Business Insider

Best Buy shares hit record high on rising sales

Best Buy Co Inc. (BBY-N) reported an unexpected rise in first-quarter comparable sales and the No. 1 U.S. electronics retailer said it planned to save $600 million in costs by the end of fiscal 2021, sending shares to an all-time high on Thursday. Best Buy, like home-improvement chain Home Depot Inc, has benefited from an improving job market in the U.S.

Reuters – MarketWatch – Forbes

Sears posts first quarterly profit since 2015

Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD-Q) rallied after posting its first quarterly profit since 2015, bringing a ray of optimism to a retail chain struggling to regain its relevance. First-quarter net income amounted to $244 million US compared with a loss of $471 million a year earlier. The gain reflects efforts by CEO Eddie Lampert to sell assets and raise cash.

Bloomberg – Reuters

Restaurants and Eateries

Starbucks best buy in the industry

While the overall restaurant industry has been struggling, Starbucks (SBUX-Q) has continually pushed forward. In April, the company reported record revenue of $5.3 billion for the second quarter, an increase of six per cent. In addition the chain saw global and U.S. comparable store sales increase three per cent while same-store sales in China rose by seven per cent. 

Motley Fool

Sports Venues

Federal prosecutor releases scathing report on Rio Olympics

Leandro Mitidieri, a federal prosecutor looking into last year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics, says many of the venues “are white elephants” that were built with “no planning.” Many of the venues are empty, boarded up, and have no tenants or income with the maintenance costs dumped on the federal government.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Infrastructure

Manitoba backs out of transit funding commitment

The Manitoba government is abandoning a longstanding commitment to cover 50 per cent of municipal transit costs. It is also removing the guarantee to devote the equivalent of a percentage point of PST revenues toward municipal infrastructure projects. The changes to the Municipal Taxation and Funding Act were included in a 68-page omnibus bill introduced in the legislature Thursday.

Winnipeg Free Press

Technology

Self-driving cars will kill cities: Opinion

In my mind, the model city of the 21st century is Venice. It is a city on a human scale, where you walk without fear of being flattened by a truck, talk on the streets without raising your voice and breathe without ingesting fumes from cars. Venice is also one of the most popular tourist destinations on the planet.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Toronto Star

Three ways technology is impacting CRE

In 2010, my sentiment was confirmed: commercial real estate was tech-averse and disjointed. In response, we launched TheSquareFoot as an office listing platform, and later became a brokerage to help clients secure deals. With technological advances, there are a few significant trends to be aware of when you are considering an office space for your startup.

Tech.co

Google helps advertisers track spending in physical stores

Google (GOOG-Q) already monitors online shopping — and now it’s keeping an eye on physical stores to try to sell more digital advertising. The internet company said Tuesday a new tool will track how much money people spend in merchants’ brick-and-mortar stores after clicking on their digital ads.

Montreal Gazette

Other

Cambridge to sell properties over unpaid property taxes

The City of Cambridge has put up five properties for sale in an effort to collect money from unpaid property taxes, an approach the city says is a last resort. The properties listed range from residential to vacant properties starting at $46,000 and going up to to $1.2 million.

CBC

Looking back on Ottawa’s lost landmarks

They were the ornate designs of another age. Fire, commercial development and urban planning have forever altered the skyline and streetscape of the nation’s capital, and many, if not most, of the architectural gems that were once commonplace in Ottawa are long gone. 

CBC

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