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Winnipeg’s CentrePort languished for years, now it booms

3 years ago

A new business park under development in Winnipeg is yet another sign of an industrial real estate revival taking place thanks to CentrePort Canada – a 20,000-acre manufacturing, distribution and logistics hub on the city’s west side.

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Hacked plans for Concord Pacific’s vision for the former Molson Coors brewery site it bought for $165 million four years ago show it hopes to persuade the City of Vancouver to rezone the industrial property into a high-tech campus with 3,000 homes.

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B.C.’s office, retail, industrial and multifamily property markets took a hit from COVID-19 this year, “but I would say since late summer, the tempo has really picked up,” says Bob Levine, Vancouver-based managing partner with Avison Young.

UPDATED: Brookfield Asset Management (BAM-A-T) and “institutional partners” are proposing to take Brookfield Property Partners LP (BPY-UN-T) private in a transaction worth about $5.9 billion US. BAM offers $16.50 for each unit of Brookfield Property Partners it does not already own.

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Montreal-based Fiera Capital Corporation (FSZ-T) is selling a pair of operations in the U.S. for a total of $81 million. It is selling Bel Air Investment Advisors to Hightower Advisors and has completed the sale of Wilkinson Global Asset Management.

IMAGE: Barry Stuart of ICR Commercial.

Managing Partner and Senior Sales Associate , ICR Commercial Real Estate

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With a 0.7 per cent vacancy rate – the lowest in North America – and Canada’s highest average lease rates, Victoria has the strongest industrial market among Western Canada capital cities. The small industrial market of 9.3 million square feet remains driven by owner-occupiers.

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Langford, Colwood and View Royal remained Greater Victoria hotbeds for development, while the provincial government was a major buyer in efforts to provide affordable housing, according to commercial realtor Dustin Miller, who compiled a list of the year’s top-10 transactions.

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Before COVID-19, vibrant, Montreal’s densely populated neighbourhoods were considered the new plus ultra of urban success. Then the pandemic hit and suddenly, the intense proximity of urban living became the scariest thing in the world.

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Four members of Canada’s black architects community offered advice on partnering with other black professionals and maintaining strong alliances with supportive white colleagues during a recent online panel billed as Lived Experiences in Architecture.

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Matthew Cheng Architect has proposed the redevelopment of a small building housing The Li Rong Wushu and Qigong martial arts academy to make way for a four-storey, mixed-use building with commercial space at grade and rental units on top.

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The BC Supreme Court has approved an acquisition of Great Canadian Gaming Corp. (GC-T) by Raptor Acquisition Corp., an affiliate of Apollo Global Management (APO-N), for $1.9 billion US. Raptor will purchase all issued and outstanding common shares for $45 per share.

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CPP Investments and logistics real estate specialist LOGOS today announced the establishment of a new Indonesian venture for the development of modern logistics facilities in Greater Jakarta. CPP Investments will invest US$200 million in the joint venture.

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As the commercial real estate industry finally puts 2020 in the rearview mirror, the path forward in 2021 is far from certain — and largely dependent on how the U.S. extricates itself from the past year’s trials.

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“From Microsoft adding 12 million users to its Teams platform in one week to the explosion of AI and machine learning, we’ve seen a massive uptick in utilization across the board (in 2020),” Aligned CEO Andrew Schaap said.

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A month and a half after redevelopment plans for the site formally fell through, South Miami’s 9.68-acre The Shops at Sunset Place sold on New Year’s Eve for $65.5 million about 59.5 per cent of the price the mall traded for in 2015.

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Since the start of the pandemic, resale condos in Toronto and other Canadian cities have tended to stagnate, even as prices of other housing types have stabilized or surged. What will it take for condo markets to return to normal?

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Toronto-area homebuyers assumed the doors had been opened to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s sales data in the wake of a landmark ruling by the Competition Tribunal. However, the industry is still struggling to navigate TRREB’s data sharing requirements.

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The B.C. Assessment Authority has updated its online record of property valuations for 2020. A sample today of random Vancouver detached homes (on Renfrew and Fraser Streets and West King Edward Avenue) showed value rises of between five and 10 per cent.

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There are entire blocks of Gottingen Street that were once considered by some too dangerous to walk down at night. Today, they’re the trendy addresses for new, pricey condominiums, pet groomers, a vegan butcher, and gourmet doughnut shops.

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