Real Estate News Exchange (RENX)
c/o Squall Inc.
P.O. Box 1484, Stn. B
Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5P6

thankyou@renx.ca
Canada: 1-855-569-6300

Multibillion-dollar Conservatory Group must be sold

3 years ago

 • 

The Conservatory Group, a multibillion-dollar development empire built from nothing in the Toronto suburbs by a man who survived Auschwitz, has been ordered wound up and sold because founder Teddy Libfeld’s four wealthy sons can’t get along.

 •   •   • 

Michael Emory, CEO of office landlord Allied Properties REIT (AP-UN-T), said bank CEOs need to “find a backbone” and start bringing staff back to the office after more than a year of working from home.

Denciti Development Corp. and Kadestone Capital Corp. (KDSX-X) have acquired an industrial development property in the community of Squamish, north of Vancouver. The partners plan to move ahead with construction on the site as soon as approvals are in place.

Three buildings in the Henday Industrial Park in Edmonton, comprising 618,363 square feet of core industrial real estate and 3.5 acres of outdoor storage, have been purchased by BentallGreenOak.

Romspen

 • 

Edmonton-based construction giant EllisDon Corp. says it’s formed a partnership with infrastructure consultant AECOM, dubbed Prairie Link, to move a $9-billion high-speed rail link between Calgary and Edmonton project forward with the backing of the provincial government.

 • 

Walmart announced Thursday it will open a 149,000-square-foot Walmart Supercentre at the Kingsway Mall north of downtown Edmonton in the fall of 2022. It will replace a Walmart store at the struggling Westmount Shopping Centre about three kilometres to the west.

 • 

A 48,000-square-foot manufacturing plant has broken ground in South Edmonton. Polykar Inc.’s latest facility is located in the Discovery Business Park. Construction of the building is Phase 1 of what will become a $40-million investment. Quebec-based Polykar specializes in sustainable packaging.

 • 

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) recently awarded Cadillac Fairview (CF)’s Toronto-Dominion Centre (TD Centre) the WELL Health-Safety Rating for all six of its towers, making it one of the largest office complexes in Canada to earn the designation.

Hersh Condos

 • 

A 10,000-square-foot building at 24 Cecil St. in downtown Toronto will soon be transformed into a new community activism and creative space operated by Black Lives Matter. A real estate listing lists the asking price for the building as $8.2 million.

 •   •   • 

Ottawa’s planning committee has approved Lofty Riverside GP Inc.’s 26-storey tower near Billings Bridge mall. The tower will include 326 apartments and 65 short-term rental hotel units. A co-working space would be located on the second floor of the podium.

 •   • 

Nearly four years after the “Jenga tower” was approved by the previous Vancouver City Council, Bosa Properties and Kingswood Properties‘ much-anticipated feat of engineering is slated to begin pre-sales in October. “Fifteen Fifteen” will contain 202 upscale condominium homes within 42 floors.

 • 

Peter Politis, Greybrook Realty Partners: World-class development, CRE Library: Episode 51
Colin Baryliuk, Kingsett Capital: Deploying equity, CRE Podcast
Joanna Frank, Center for Active Design: How healthy buildings drive ROI, Tenant Experience Network. Season 2, Episode 9

 • 

Philippine fast-food giant Jollibee Foods is teaming up with Double Dragon Properties to set up the country’s “first and largest industrial (REIT).” Jollibee is the latest Philippine company to tap the nascent market for REITs to fund its post-pandemic recovery.

 •   • 

More than 20 million square feet of office space is under construction in Manhattan, and as leasing activity has remained well below historical levels, experts are warning about the country’s largest office market being severely oversupplied for the near future.

 • 

Red-hot demand from leisure travelers boosted a key lodging industry metric higher than it was during the same period in 2019, marking the first time since the pandemic began that U.S. hotels outperformed pre-Covid levels.

 • 

Placer.ai’s latest mall index — the sample for which has been doubled to 100 U.S. properties — indicates traffic in enclosed shopping centres during June was only eight percentage points off June 2019.

Real Estate Forums

 •   •   • 

Ontario engineering company C.F. Crozier & Associates Inc. is giving staff $20,000 to help them buy their first home, showing the lengths to which at least one employer is going to attract and retain talent.

 •   • 

With the rapid increase in the price of condominium units this year, some buyers are turning to co-ops and co-ownerships as an alternative. Unlike condominiums, co-ops and co-ownerships exist under originating documents created by their developers and lawyers.

 • 

A house at 75 Granton Ave. in Ottawa’s City View is to be demolished, being replaced with two doubles, each with a rentable basement unit — one dwelling on 90-foot frontage becomes eight. The four main units will sell for about $1.2 million.

 • 

Three Quebec-based religious orders that staffed residential schools in the rest of Canada have earned millions from property sales in recent years, even as the Catholic Church said it couldn’t pay its share of a settlement meant for survivors.

Industry Events