The lowdown on Ottawa’s increasingly high rise hopes

The lowdown on Ottawa’s increasingly high rise hopes

In a single meeting, Ottawa city council was set to approve three rezoning applications that could add 350 storeys and 11 new buildings along what’s now a mostly desolate one-kilometre stretch of Albert Street. It’s an unprecedented orgy of city building that will render the urban landscape just west of downtown unrecognizable.

CBC – CBC

The negative impact of steel tariffs on U.S. developers

When the temporary exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs granted to Canada, Mexico and the European Union expired on May 31, 2018, the commercial development industry found itself faced with a sudden and dramatic increase in construction costs. While the tariffs had already been in effect for several weeks for steel imported from other nations, the inclusion of these U.S. allies within those countries subject to the tariffs marked a critical shift.

NRE Online

True North eyes seven buildings, issues $50M in shares

True North Commercial REIT says it intends to purchase seven office properties in five Canadian cities and is making a $50-million share offering as part of its financing for the purchases. Two buildings are in the Greater Toronto Area, two in Ottawa, one in Calgary and one each in Abbotsford and Victoria, B.C.

Property Biz Canada

Toronto’s latest spec office: Carttera’s 65 King East

Carttera Private Equities Inc. is starting construction of the 400,000-square-foot 65 King East office building in downtown Toronto this month without any confirmed tenants. “I think it’s a weighted risk in going forward on spec,” said Werner Dietl, executive vice-president and regional managing director for the Greater Toronto Area at CBRE.

Property Biz Canada

Studio Gang unveils striking new Toronto tower

Over 200 people packed the room at a community consultation to get their first glimpse of Slate Asset Management‘s One Delisle at Yonge and St. Clair, a proposed mixed-use residential tower that represents the first project in Canada for Chicago-based powerhouse firm Studio Gang. Jeanne Gang herself addressed the standing room only event.

Urban Toronto – BDC Network

Burnaby on track to smash construction record

Burnaby’s feverish pace of development is set to smash a billion-dollar record set last year. The city granted $1 billion in building permits in 2017, breaking its 2015 record of $879 million. By the end of June, only halfway through 2018, the city had already handed out 786 permits with a total value  of $704 million – putting it on track to hit $1.4 billion in by year’s end.

Business in Vancouver

Vancouver office occupancy costs rise fastest in N. America

Strong demand combined with tight supply has pushed office occupancy costs in downtown Vancouver 16.1 per cent higher than a year ago, the biggest price increase in North America. The annual Global Prime Office Occupancy Costs by CBRE found downtown Vancouver prices jumped to USD $47.95 per square foot in the first quarter of 2018.

Property Biz Canada

Metrolinx chair Robert Prichard resigns from board

Robert Prichard, chair of the board of Metrolinx, has resigned his seat, effective immediately, according to a statement released by the provincial transit agency. Robert Prichard said it was time for a change in leadership given the election of a new government in Ontario. The resignation comes one day after Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt and the entire board stepped down as part of an agreement with the Ontario government.

CBC

Fleissig resigns as CEO of Waterfront Toronto

Waterfront Toronto’s board of directors has announced that chief executive officer Will Fleissig has advised the board he is stepping down. The agency responsible for spearheading development of Toronto’s waterfront issued a statement July 4 that said it “has been fortunate to have a leader with such an innovative vision of what Toronto’s waterfront could and should be, and we wish him the very best as he takes on new challenges in the future.”

Construct Connect

Hydro One board will be primarily major shareholders

Hydro One said the new board of directors will initially consist of 10 members, with four nominated by the province and the other six through a committee made up of representatives of the company’s other largest shareholders. The new directors will also be tasked with finding a new CEO, who will sit as the 11th member of the board. The identity of the shareholders who will populate the nominating committee was not immediately clear.

Financial Post

Colliers US President Martin Pupil leaves firm

Martin Pupil has left Colliers International after helping lead the company through rapid expansion and change. Pupil, who served as president of the U.S. brokerage since December 2016, accepted a job with a regional firm “focusing on the principal side of our industry,” Colliers International president and chief operating officer Dylan Taylor said in a message to the company’s global presidents and market leaders.

CoStar Group

Brookfield’s BFIN prepares as top rainmaker departs

BFIN is expected to lose a top Canadian rainmaker, according to people familiar with the matter, a blow to Brookfield’s real estate brokerage firm that already lost a veteran deal maker and other key partners in Canada. Leonard Abramsky, a managing partner, is planning to leave before the end of the year. At the global investment bank since 2005, Mr. Abramsky is one of BFIN’s heavy hitters who brings in the Canadian real estate business.

Globe and Mail (Requires subscription)

CPPIB and Longfor Group invest in rental housing in China

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and Longfor Group Holdings Limited  are expanding their relationship to launch a new investment cooperation that will focus on rental housing programs in China with an initial targeted investment of approximately US$817 million. The new cooperation will invest in China across Tier I and core Tier II cities via developments, acquisition and master-lease of commercial assets to be converted into rental housing.

Globe Newswire – PI Online

Oxford Properties co-invests in UK private-rental sector

Oxford Properties has co-invested in a UK private-rented sector (PRS) venture backed by Qatari Diar, Delancey and Dutch pension fund asset manager APG. Get Living said a Delancey advised client fund DV4 and Oxford Properties have teamed up to form Delancey Oxford Residential (DOOR), a new co-investment platform with initial capital commitments of $1B CAD.

IPE Real Estate

Mexico City: new Artz Pedregal shopping mall collapses

A newly opened shopping mall in Mexico City has partly collapsed after structural problems apparently led the mall’s operators to evacuate the area. No casualties were reported.  The risk posed by substandard building has been a longstanding issue in Mexico City, where many poorly built or designed buildings collapsed in the city’s 1985 and 2017 earthquakes. The city also has notoriously bad subsoil conditions, and developers often build on unstable land.

The Guardian – YouTube video of collapse

Market Trends and Research

For Ottawa hotel operators, it’s the Canada Day hangover

It’s a perennial pattern in the National Capital Region. Tourists scramble to find hotel rooms on Canada Day and are willing in most cases to pay full price. The following weekend? Not so much. During last year’s Canada Day weekend, for instance, tourists secured 14,585 rooms across Ottawa. The next weekend, just 11,801 rooms were occupied, a decline of nearly 20 per cent according to a compilation by Ottawa Tourism.

Ottawa Citizen

Real Estate Companies

Ottawa HQ for merged First Air-Canadian North airline

The two main airlines that serve Canada’s North have announced a plan to merge into a single carrier based in Ottawa. First Air and Canadian North have reached an agreement in principle to join forces, the two companies said late last week in a joint statement. Terms of the deal were not released.

Ottawa Business Journal

Madison Pacific releases nine months financial reports

Madison Pacific Properties Inc., (MPC-C-T) a Vancouver-based real estate company announces the results of operations for the nine months ended May 31, 2018. The company owns approximately $500 million in investment properties, comprised of 49 properties with approximately 1.7 million rentable sq. ft. of industrial and commercial space, and residential development land. Approximately 99 per cent of the available space, excluding properties under development is currently leased.

Globe Newswire

Becker Milk Company 2018 financial results

Since 2014 the board of directors of the Becker Milk Company Limited (BEK-B-T) has been evaluating strategic directions for the company and has engaged in discussions with potential acquirers. None of those discussions are active at this time. During this period a program of divesting less desirable sites has resulted in the sale of 14 investment properties. The company continues to review its strategic alternatives.

Globe Newswire

New Development

Sunshine Coast stunted by anti-development stance

More than 20 years after it was planned and a year since development was approved, the only waterfront hotel in the Sunshine Coast community of Gibsons is still in the ground. More than two-dozen speakers in a crowd of 200 at the local Legion recently denounced plans for the development of part of Gospel Rock in Gibsons, a site that has been eyed for new homes for decades.

Business in Vancouver

Edmonton condo developer fills massive downtown hole

A gaping downtown hole is gone after the construction of a new highrise condo reached its latest milestone. “We’ve hit the ground floor … that hole sat open for almost four years,” said business development manager Sarah Itani with Calgary-based Cidex Group. “Everyone is really excited.” The building site at 95 Street and Jasper Avenue is home to the Hat at Five Corners project, which is billed as a 199-unit condo that will include retail space.

Edmonton Journal

Resorts

Ski area developers to pay in investor fraud case

Vermont has settled a lawsuit against two ski resort developers who were accused of defrauding the state’s troubled immigrant investor program. Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced on Thursday that former Jay Peak ski area owner Ariel Quiros, of Miami, will pay the state $2 million, satisfied by giving the state five properties in and around Jay Peak. Those properties will be liquidated, and the money will be earmarked for economic development.

Winnipeg Free Press

Infrastructure

Eglinton LRT builder sues Metrolinx over delays

The company building Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT line has filed a lawsuit against Metrolinx to compensate it for delays in the $5.3-billion project, but small business owners in the Eglinton West area who are suffering due to the ongoing construction say the lawsuit is too little, too late. Crosslinx Transit Solutions was supposed to complete the project in 2020, but it’s now scheduled to be operational in 2021.

CBC

Tory government cancels $100M school repair fund

Ontario’s new Tory government has cancelled a $100-million fund earmarked for school repairs this year, a cut that comes as a result of Doug Ford’s campaign promise to scrap the province’s cap-and-trade system. School boards were notified on July 3 that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund would be eliminated and that only work contracted on or before that date would be covered.

Construct Connect

International

The Russian money behind the Toronto Trump tower

One October day in 2007, a celebrity real estate developer in a greatcoat and powder-blue tie alighted from a stretch limousine in Toronto’s financial district arriving for the ground breaking ceremony. To his left was his partner in the $500M skyscraper that became the Toronto Trump Tower: a Russian-Canadian billionaire whose fortune had its origins in the collision of communism, capitalism and the KGB at the fall of the Soviet empire.

Financial Times (Subscription required)

Human Resources

DavidsTea director Roland Walton resigns from board

DavidsTea Inc. says Roland Walton has resigned as a director. Walton was elected to the company’s board of directors last month as part of a group of dissident nominees that replaced the existing board. He is a former president of Tim Hortons Canada. DavidsTea co-founder Herschel Segal led the shareholder revolt to replace the board at the company’s annual meeting in June.

Winnipeg Free Press

Other

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