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$1.2B Le Quartier-Forestia planned in Greater Montreal

5 years ago

Boisbriand wants to join Montreal’s growth boom with a $1.2-billion, sustainably themed Le Quartier-Forestia development. “Le Quartier-Forestia aims to create a quality living environment based on the principles of Transit Oriented Development,” said Le Quartier-Forestia president Raymond Lessard.

Executives from five major companies closed the AptCon 19 rental apartment development conference by offering insights into the risks and rewards of the sector. “It’s a very competitive environment to buy apartments,” Centurion Asset Management Inc. president/CEO Greg Romundt said.

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Colliers International Group Inc. (CIGI-T) announced Dylan Taylor has been terminated as chief executive officer of its Real Estate Services division for alleged misconduct including improper trading activity in Colliers securities in breach of his employment obligations.

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Construction is well under way on the redevelopment of 1133 Melville Street in downtown Vancouver into The Stack — a 530-foot, 36-storey office tower with 540,000 square feet of class-AAA office space. Toronto-based developer Oxford Properties Group held a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.

Romspen Commercial Lender

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While David-esque in size compared with goliaths like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN-Q) or Microsoft Corp. (MSFT-Q), smaller American tech firms are increasingly borrowing from the playbook of giants by expanding substantially in Vancouver.

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Brent Findley, senior manager of security at CF Pacific Centre, said 25 years ago the message to the homeless was typically to get off of the property. “(Now), we’re approaching it with the idea of trying to help them,” he explains.

IMAGE: Columnist Kelly Macsymic, of ICR Commercial.

Business Manager, Stuart Commercial Inc., Sales Associate, ICR Commercial Real Estate

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CAPREIT (CAR-UN-T) announced today it has acquired a brand new, purpose-built luxury rental apartment property in Langley, B.C.. The building, which CAPREIT acquired for $39 million, comprises of 98 suites containing a mix of bachelor, one-, two-, and three-bedroom suites.

Legacy Business District

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Winnipeg city officials want to sell a former cemetery. Councillors on the property and development committee will be asked at their June 24 meeting to endorse declaring the parcel at the West Fort Garry Industrial Park as unneeded land.

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Convenience and mass marketing of meat alternatives are making demand for plant-based choices a hot consumer trend. French company Roquette could not have picked a better time to build the largest pea-protein plant in the world in Portage la Prairie.

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An analysis of real estate markets across Greater Vancouver by financial publication MoneySense puts the neighbourhood of Uptown in New Westminster, B.C., at the top of its rankings.

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ICE District Properties Thursday introduced Archetype, a new luxury fitness and lifestyle club in  ICE District opening in August. Situated on the fifth floor of the JW Marriott Edmonton ICE District hotel, Archetype will be a 20,000-square-foot club.

Community Trust

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Who in Vancouver really needs a garage, anyway? Transit projects and developments oriented to transit continue to validate that rhetorical question, but they’ve also begged the question of how much parking should cost the end-user.

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FirstService Corporation (FSV-T) announced it has completed its acquisition of approximately 95 per cent of Global Restoration Holdings, the second-largest commercial and large loss property restoration firm in North America, for a purchase price of approximately $505 million.

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Brookfield Property Partners L.P. (BPY.UN-T) and Hearst Corp. have broken ground on a $1 billion mixed-use project in San Francisco’s SoMa district. KPF is the master plan architect of the entire property and designed three major buildings of the upcoming development.

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A joint venture of Cerberus Capital and Hines has acquired Houston’s JPMorgan Chase Tower, the tallest building in Texas, for approximately $627 million, according to a report from Real Estate Alert. The seller, Hariri Interests, had owned the skyscraper since 1981.

Canadian Apartment Investment Conference

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Tenants ousted, residents stripped of nerve, burglaries, noise, conflicts in condominiums: the lack of regulation in short-term rentals like Airbnb caused the withdrawal of thousands of housing rental stock and forced the Quebec government to intervene.

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The City of Charlottetown will have a lot to consider when putting together the new bylaw to regulate short-term rentals. The majority of those favouring regulating the units listed on sites such as Airbnb and VRBO wanted an owner-occupied model.

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Altree Developments announced a new mid-rise project for a three-acre property in east Toronto that sits atop the steep banks of the heavily forested Highland Creek valley — a location that’s a tremendous selling point but also makes for development challenges.

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New private developments with a total of 343 residential units were approved this week by Nanaimo council as developers respond to strong demand amid a housing shortage in the Harbour City.

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